Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Spain – Economic conditions – 2008-'

Defence date: 13 June 2019
Examining Board: Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Elias Dinas, European University Institute; Prof. Eva Anduiza, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Prof. Kenneth M. Roberts, Duke University
The Great Recession constituted a breaking point in several aspects of the cultural, economic and political life of southern European countries (i.e. Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). This dissertation aims to shed light on the political consequences of the economic crisis in this region —with a specific focus on Spain as a paradigmatic case— by analysing different aspects of the political transformations that took place during the period of crisis. The underlying argument is that, albeit some relevant differences, the four countries experienced a common pattern: the incapacity of national politics to offer differentiated recipes to the deteriorating economic situation triggered a widespread crisis of representation that introduced new issues in the political agenda and drove the political transformations in these countries. The combination of a political and economic crisis at the national and European levels opened new political spaces that new parties capitalised by appealing to the need for democratic renewal and opposition to austerity politics. Furthermore, as illustrated by the Spanish case, and in particular the Catalan experience, the political crisis had far-reaching consequences beyond economic grievances, leading to the activation of different types of conflicts. Overall, the findings suggest that the transformations in the structure of political conflict in southern Europe in the aftermath of the Great Recession are not the by-product of a growing cultural divide —as is the case in several other continental and north-European countries—, but instead respond to the loss of credibility in the political system. Methodologically, the dissertation relies on an original dataset of media content as well as on several sources of survey data to test the empirical validity of the claims.
Chapter 2 'From Boom to Bust : A Comparative Analysis of Greece and Spain under Austerity' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as chapter 'From boom to bust : a comparative analysis of Greece and Spain under austerity' (2018) in the book Living under austerity : Greek society in crisis.
Chapter 3 'Old versus new politics: The political spaces in Southern Europe in times of crisis' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Old versus new politics : the political spaces in Southern Europe in times of crises' (2018) in the journal 'Party politics'
Chapter 4 'Out with the Old: Restructuring Spanish Politics' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Challenging business as usual? : the rise of new parties in Spain in times of crisis' (2017) in the journal 'West European politics'

La investigación que sustenta esta tesis se sitúa en el contexto de la crisis económica del 2008, la cual tuvo un gran impacto en los países del sur de Europa, así como en otras regiones del mundo. Considerando sus principales consecuencias, como son la desregulación del mercado laboral, la retirada de fondos de inversión pública y el aumento de las desigualdades, esta tesis se propuso encontrar respuestas a preguntas tales como: ¿de qué manera han afectado los cambios socioeconómicos a aquellos segmentos de la sociedad que podríamos llamar de medianos y bajos ingresos en España y Chipre? y ¿cuáles son las bases estructurales y culturales (ideas, narrativas, creencias) sobre las que se están construyendo estas desigualdades? Con el propósito de encontrar respuestas a estas preguntas, llevé a cabo trabajo de campo en diferentes localidades de España y, en menor medida, en Chipre. Esta tesis sugiere que las experiencias de trabajo precario y las crecientes dificultades para manejar las esferas productivas y reproductivas de la vida han creado un décalage con respecto al proyecto de clase media que caracterizaba el Estado de Bienestar de los Estados Europeos de los 70 tras el auge de la financialización y de los mercados globales. De este modo, a pesar de darse ciertas continuidades con dicho proyecto, ha habido un aumento de las desigualdades entre las capas medias y bajas. Para sostener estas expectativas, la llamada ‘clase media’ emerge como una clase “simbólica” que se acerca mucho más al idealismo neoliberal promovido por las élites que a los que realmente han sido desplazados. En el paradigma flexible contemporáneo observamos, así, una re-estructuración de lo que llamo ‘la política económica de los valores’ y de las expectativas que motivan a los trabajadores a vender su fuerza de trabajo. El título de la tesis, “La revolución subjetiva”, engloba ese universo cultural a través del cual los símbolos son movilizados y re-inventados, y en el cual se han desplegado un gran número de recursos para hacerle frente a la crisis. Ahora bien, ¿cuál es el mecanismo a través del cual esta re-estructuración de ‘la economía política de los valores’ se materializa? Entendiendo que esta última ola de precariedad en las condiciones de trabajo ha supuesto una abstracción del valor del trabajo a través de elementos culturales y simbólicos, concluyo que la alienación derivada de este proceso dificulta identificar la precariedad con un retroceso político de las libertades. Por esto, sugiero que el trabajador flexible de la post-crisis mantiene las aspiraciones culturales de esta clase simbólica despiertas, y sus reivindicaciones políticas adormecidas.
The research upon which this thesis is based took place in the context of the economic crisis that hit Southern Europe and other regions of the world in 2008. Considering the changes that scholars were pointing at, such as the further de-regulation of the labour market, the cuts in public spending, and the rising levels of inequality, I sought to find specific answers to the questions: In what ways have socio-economic transformations following the crisis changed the lives of ‘middle’ and ‘lower-middle’ segments of the Spanish and Cypriot societies? And, what are the structural and qualitative foundations (ideas, narratives, beliefs) informing these new inequalities? For this purpose, fieldwork was carried out in different settings and locations in Spain, and to a lesser extent, in Cyprus. This thesis proposes that experiences of precarious work, and the increasing difficulties with managing the productive and reproductive life spheres, have created a disjuncture with the middle-class project that European welfare states pursued after the 70s with the rise of financialization and global capitalism. Despite the continuities of this project, recent processes have led to rising inequalities between the middle and lower-income groups. As a way of sustaining class expectations, the so called ‘middle classes’ emerge once again as a symbolic class that stands much closer to the neoliberal ideals of the elites than to the truly dispossessed. In today’s flexibility paradigm, we see a restructuring of what I term ‘the political economy of values’ and the expectations that prompt workers to sell their labour. The thesis title “The subjective revolution” encapsulates the cultural world through which symbols are mobilized and re-invented, alluding to the incredible resourcefulness with which the dispossessed middle-income groups have reacted to the crisis and its aftermath. What is the mechanism by which such a restructuring of the political economy of values is taking place? By understanding that this recent wave of worsening labour conditions has required a new ‘abstraction’ of labour value through cultural and symbolic means, I conclude that further alienation prevents people from identifying current political practices with ‘unfreedom’. Thus, I conclude that the idea of the flexible worker was brought into play again after the 2008 financial crash as a symbol whose purpose is to keep the cultural aspirations of this symbolic class awake and its politics asleep.

Neutrality has long been seen as impartiality in war (Grotius, 1925), and is codified as such in The Hague and Geneva Conventions. This dissertation empirically investigates the activities of three neutral states in the Second World War and determines, on a purely economic basis, these countries actually employed realist principles to ensure their survival. Neutrals maintain their independence by offering economic concessions to the belligerents to make up for their relative military weakness. Depending on their position, neutral countries can also extract concessions from the belligerents if their situation permits it.   Despite their different starting places, governments and threats against them, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland provided similar types of political and economic concessions to the belligerents. This thesis comparatively investigates neutral trade, labour and capital. Using standardized trade statistics, this study shows that while all three neutrals were dependent on the Germans for most basic goods, they were generally able to benefit from relative gains in prices and excess imports of goods in periods of German weakness. In trade with the Allies, at least two of the three countries permitted the illicit export of items necessary for the Allied war effort, and did so at reduced relative prices.   All three neutrals benefitted from substantial services revenue and positive balance of payments in all of their belligerent relationships. In several cases the neutrals were able to force the belligerents to cover their balance of payments deficits in gold because they needed to maintain access to the neutral markets. The final chapters demonstrate that despite political promises, the Spanish and Swiss governments constructed labour transfer systems to limit the number of workers for Germany.

The global crisis of 2007-2008 is the most severe crisis since the Great Depression in the financial markets. Starting with the subprime defaults in the United States, it quickly spills over into other markets leading to the collapses of many financial institutions, bail-outs of banks worldwide and downturns in asset prices. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the repercussions of this crisis on CDS and interbank market and provide empirical evidence on the changes in the pricing of CDS contracts and interbank deposits. Chapter 2 discusses the determinants of CDS spread changes on European contracts. The most remarkable finding of the study is that the relation between credit spreads and their determinants is regime dependant and depends on the sector of economic activity. Before the crisis the underlying credit risk in the overall CDS market is sufficient to explain credit risk. During the crisis investors have a differing view on the risk of financial and non--financial contracts Interestingly, non-financial CDS contracts reflect the credit risk of the counterparty, but financial contracts do not. This implies that governments are expected to bail out dealers to prevent systemic risk. Chapter 3 provides further insight into the European corporate CDS spreads and proposes an equilibrium model accommodating the occurrence of structural breaks in the long-run relationship between the variables. These breaks are endogenously determined within unit root specifications used to describe the dynamics of the explanatory factors. The findings highlight that crisis shocks are persistent and have the potential to change long-run equilibrium dynamics. The systematic credit risk factor is proxied by the European iTraxx index and the idiosyncratic factor by the stock price of reference entity. The model indicates that stock market leads price discovery process. Vector error correction model confirms the strong predictive ability of the iTraxx index and the error correcting vector for changes in the CDS spreads. Chapter 4 focuses on European interbank market and has two main contributions. First, it estimates the cross-sectional density of interbank funding rates using nonparametric kernel methods. Second, it analyzes the effect of banks size, the operating currency and banks' nationality on the cross-sectional distribution of these rates. The findings strongly support the statistical significance of these effects and highlight the importance of these factors as early warning indicators of financial distress. Prior to the crisis, the borrowing segment of the market exhibits distinctive features such as highly volatile and multimodal distributions suggesting the occurrence of distortions in the cross-section of funding rates. During crisis, large domestic banks operating in Euros enjoy the most favourable rates. Banks' nationality analysis further confirms that interbank market provided early warning signals of incoming sovereign crisis.

The term ‘de-industrialization’ stands for an element of structural change, indicating some form of decline within the secondary sector of a national economy. Sociologists use relative decline of manufacturing as their standard definition while economists often consider re-ductions in sectoral output as equally or even more important. There is a variety of other current descriptions. As a key element of this thesis, rigid definitions were constituted and utilized in two complementary models of de-industrialization. These were tested by macro-economic data for 12 mature and 25 emerging countries, covering the years 1973-2008 with successive 15 + 5 +15-year sub-periods. Productivity was identified as the key driver and indicator for success of the manufac-turing sector. It was found that the country-specific maximum in relative employment in manufacturing is reached at a threshold productivity that can be calculated by two linear functions of productivity over time, related to mature and emerging economies, respec-tively. On the basis of the model-based findings and additional socio-economic analyses, differ-ent paths of industrial development were distinguished for mature economies (i.e. fully industrialized states beyond their maximum relative employment in manufacturing) and emerging economies (i.e. states that have not yet industrialized to their full potential) with regard to their final outcome, i.e. the sectoral parameters and the resulting GDP per capita, employment and trade. From these findings, lessons to be learnt for policy makers were derived.

Few exploratory ventures would ever be undertaken if the explorer appreciated his own limitations at the outset. Although his ultimate destination is unclear, the route uncertain, the terrain unfamiliar and the tools inadequate he is spurred initially by a self-assurance born of his own limited knowledge. Unfortunately, that same self-assurance ill-equips him for the difficulties which he inevitably has to face en route. This thesis has been no exception to this pattern. It has involved more than its fair share of blind alleys, false trails, disorientation, retracing of footsteps and re-establishment of bearings. It has occasionally been marked by that feeling of despairing bewilderment which confronts the uncertain traveller lost in unfamiliar territory or overwhelmed by the novelty and complexity of his surroundings. Like most exploratory journeys, it has been difficult to decide when the ultimate destination has been reached and almost impossible in restrospect to recall the exact route by which that particular point was achieved. However, the historian of Dahomey is fortunate in comparison with the explorer venturing into virgin territory. For he is well served by the pioneers who have blazed the trail before him and by the signposts which are available to him. The Kingdom of Dahomey has been well covered by primary source material and contemporary documentation and publications.

Defence date: 28 September 2022
Examining Board: Prof. Pieter Judson (European University Institute); Prof. Tamar Herzog (Harvard University); Prof. Christopher Storrs (University of Dundee); Prof. Regina Grafe (European University Institute)
Why and how did modern states emerge in Southwestern Europe? These are the main questions that this thesis answers by examining the debt of six municipalities of the Crown of Aragon during the 18th century through a multiscale, transversal, and comparative approach. The ancient practices which constituted the Aragonese polity appeared in the mid-fourteenth century and survived at least until the mid-eighteenth century partially thanks to the debt of the municipalities. Towns and kingdoms were in many cases ruled by assemblies of creditors by virtue of debt restructuring agreements. Debt accounts for the long survival of the Aragonese polity, but also for its sclerosis. The financial situation of the debtholders, mostly ecclesiastical institutions, prevented rulers from defaulting on municipal debt and adopting drastic measures against the Church, as they feared a financial meltdown. The emergence of the modern state was an intricate process which started by 1750, mainly due to the collapse of the ancient mechanisms. The modern state appeared as a set of practices devised and implemented by a myriad of actors who tried to recompose social and political life. State formation was first and foremost a local process in which municipal debt proved crucial too. The examination of local dynamics reveals that modern states in Southwestern Europe followed similar paths during the early phases of their formation.

This thesis advances our understanding of the effects of foreign aid programmes in the Spanish economy during the 1950s. It does so by concentrating on three aspects. First, it considers the contribution to economic growth of aid-financed goods by relieving input bottlenecks. Results from an input-output analysis downplay the alleged importance of aid in increasing Spanish output by providing raw materials and other inputs. Second, it discusses the extent to which foreign donors influenced Spanish economic policy-making. Based on original archival sources from both recipient and donors, it is argued here that the United States was particularly ineffective at imposing its economic policy agenda. Surprisingly, the best way to increase the likelihood of the adoption of economic policy reform was not to exercise outright leverage but to provide further unconditional aid disbursements. The analysis of the involvement of the International Monetary Fund and Organisation for European Economic Co-operation to underwrite the 1959 Spanish Stabilisation Plan suggests that the multilateral organisations were acutely aware of the overriding importance of a true commitment to the reforms by the local policy-makers. Rather than relying on formal conditionality, they ascertained such commitment by monitoring the internal support for the reform programme whilst carefully avoiding any instance that may jeopardise the cohesion of the domestic pro-reform coalition. Third, the dissertation motivates a 'credibility hypothesis' under which the American aid-for-bases programme improved the political credibility of the regime and with it private businesses' expectations. A range of both qualitative and quantitative evidence, of which the use of financial market data is paramount, supports the hypothesis. This result contributes to solving the puzzle of Spanish economic history during a period that sees the resumption of economic growth after a stagnant first decade under Franco's rule despite very limited policy change.

This dissertation investigates the effects of the financial crisis on the South African economy. In order to do this, an index which describes the financial conditions of the South African economy is constructed and computed. The index indicates that domestic South African financial conditions have deteriorated substantially during the period under study and so the study investigates how this has impacted on the country’s economic growth. A VAR model with South African variables is specified and used to assess the quantitative effects of the financial crisis on South African real GDP growth. Results suggest that the South African economy was not significantly affected by the crisis, but economic growth was slowed down and may still grow substantially slower in the next few years due to the financial crisis. These results corroborate the theoretical predictions and are also supported by previous studies.

This thesis is a critical examination of the origins, barriers and prospects for a working class-led civil society as it sought to democratise Zimbabwe’s post-colonial state. It is an interdisciplinary but historically informed analysis of how advanced capitalist development promoted the emergence of social movement unionism with a potentiality to advance democracy in Zimbabwe. Despite occurring on a much smaller and thinner scale, the evolution of civil society in colonial Zimbabwe was akin to what happened in 19th century Britain where capitalist expansion presented a foundation for democratisation. However, big underlying barriers exist in Zimbabwe, resulting from various forms of authoritarian structures and forcible mobilisation strategies emanating from colonialism and the protracted war of liberation. ZANU PF’s violent reaction to memory contests by non-participants in the war of liberation seeking an alternative political agenda attest to the controversial and polemical nature of struggles over memory and forgetting in contemporary Zimbabwean politics. These structural impediments forestalled the organic growth of civil society in Zimbabwe, thereby explaining its inchoate status and the failure to significantly determine the course of public policy. While recognising the democratic aspirations and capacities of the working class in precipitating political change, this thesis takes into consideration the impact of other factors on state-society relations. These include deepening state barbarism, globalisation, and technological advances in communication, transnational civil society, a dysfunctional economy, migration and remittances. Finally this thesis presents an optimistic scenario about the prospects for civil society and democratisation in Zimbabwe. I argue that the revival of the productive sectors of the economy can possibly strengthen the labour movement and revive its capacities for ushering in a democracy.

This thesis explores the complexities of parenting in post-apartheid South Africa. It investigates the normative expectations surrounding motherhood and fatherhood and how employed mothers, as those who bear the main responsibility for childcare, reconcile family and paid work. It is a qualitative study which draws on 43 interviews with women and men managers in a Government Department and a Parastatal. Thirty seven interviews were with managers (21 mothers and 16 fathers), 3 with gender experts in these organisations, and 3 with Human Resources personnel. It also draws on an analysis of domestic divisions of labour in 3 households and an exploration of national legislation and workplace policies to examine how the workplace accommodates those with family/childcare responsibilities. The study demonstrates that South African parenting is complex: parental norms encapsulate the coexistence of modern and traditional values (Inglehart and Baker, 2003; Hotchfeld, 2008), rather than following a linear pattern of change from traditional to modern. Moreover, there are inconsistencies in values and normative expectations relating to gender-role attitudes and parenting expectations, as well as between gender-role attitudes and parenting practices. Incongruencies and contradictions in relation to parenting are also found between and within domains: the fast-changing workplace brought about by the new democratic government‟s commitment to equality and the subsequent transformation of the public sector contrasts with the „stalled revolution‟ in parenting practices, especially in relation domestic divisions of labour, within the domestic sphere. Using Squires‟s (2005) typology of inclusion, reversal and displacement to analyze South African approaches to workplace gender transformation, the study establishes that South Africa has adopted policies based on inclusion and reversal and has left out displacement, thus increasing women‟s representation at the workplace without challenging the status quo. To this effect the workplace has remained masculineoriented; it is characterized by a long-working hours regime and minimal work-life balance policies. As a result mothers are facing difficulties in reconciling family and paid work. However, women mobilize support outside the workplace to cope with the demands of family and paid work. The study shows that the support networks mobilized by women are influenced by socio-economic and geographical mobility associated with the rise of the new black middle-class families brought about by the political change from apartheid to democracy. The migration of families from working to middle-class areas demonstrates the fluidity of mothering and coping strategies; while fathers remain free from childcare and family responsibilities.

For an introductory macroeconomics course, the discussion of historical relevance helps foster important learning connections. By comparing the Great Depression to the 2008-2009 recession, a macroeconomics instructor can provide students with connections to history. This paper discusses the major causes of each recession, major fiscal policy and monetary policy decisions of both recessions, and the respective relevance in teaching the relationship of each policy to gross domestic product. The teaching points addressed in this paper are directed towards an introductory college-level macroeconomics course, incorporating a variety of theories from historical and economic writers and data from government and central bank sources. A lesson plan is included in an appendix to assist the instructor in implementing the material.

Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
This study assessed the developments in financial intermediation services provided by Namibia’s commercial banking sector during 1995 to 2008. The study used two measurements of financial deepening in order to ascertain whether the role of the banking sector has become more important in the economy or not. These methods are the credit extension to non-finance private sector and the financial intermediation to GDP ratio. Unlike previous studies, which found that financial intermediation has not deepened before or after independence (Shiimi & Kadhikwa, 1999; Kavari, 2003), this study found some evidence of financial deepening in Namibia as indicated by the increasing credit extension and financial intermediation as shares of GDP. However, the banking sector did not perform well in terms of improving efficiency as banks continued to operate with high interest margins and became more dependent on fee income as opposed to deriving more of their income from intermediation activities. The largest chunk of bank credit was in the form of mortgage funding, allowing individuals, real estate and the business sector to be the major recipients of bank credit during the review period. The study took cognisance of recent measures aimed at enhancing the sector’s relevance and contribution to the economy. These include amendments to the statutes to allow entry of unincorporated bank branches in order to increase competition as well as requiring banks to reduce interest margins, amongst other measures. The study therefore recommends a vigorous implementation of these measures and that the regulator should extend its monitoring oversight to cover actual lending and deposit rates of interest in addition to base rates such as the prime rate and the mortgage base rate that it currently monitors. This is necessary due to weak linkages between the base rates and actual interest rates. The study further recommends a concerted national effort that seeks to ensure availability and affordability of credit on one hand, and to prepare bank clients, particularly the SME sector to be ready to take up finance on business terms on the other hand. This requires incentivising SMEs to become formal businesses and providing them with necessary training and mentoring services in order to improve their risk profiles.

Orientador: Marco Antonio Coelho Bortoleto
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação Física
Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T19:37:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira_MauriciodosSantosde_M.pdf: 2236556 bytes, checksum: 11a8b423f57878bb1fb33d49dae77a12 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010
Resumo: Observamos, nos últimos anos, uma expressiva melhora nos resultados internacionais da Ginástica Artística (GA) brasileira. Apesar deste perceptível avanço, é difícil avaliar objetivamente o nível de desenvolvimento desta modalidade competitiva no cenário esportivo nacional. São poucos os dados disponíveis referentes à modalidade, o que aponta para uma escassez de pesquisas que permitam uma análise criteriosa e precisa desta problemática. Deste modo, o objetivo central desse estudo foi descrever o panorama da Ginástica Artística Masculina (GAM) brasileira no último ciclo olímpico (2005-2008), com ênfase nas dimensões competitiva, econômica, organizacional e de infraestrutura. Para tal, fizemos uma análise da atual conjuntura das federações estaduais, filiadas a Confederação Brasileira de Ginástica (CBG), bem como uma análise pormenorizada de diversos outros aspectos, tais como: a quantidade e a qualidade dos ginastas federados, número de participantes em competições de nível nacional e internacional, a quantidade de árbitros no país e a sua qualificação, o número de clubes federados e a sua distribuição no território nacional, a realidade financeira da modalidade, entre outros. Metodologicamente, realizamos uma revisão bibliográfica e documental seguida de um estudo de campo constituído por um questionário enviado às federações estaduais de ginástica e entrevistas junto a profissionais de destaque (ginastas, técnicos, árbitros e dirigentes). Os dados obtidos revelaram com uma maior riqueza de detalhes a realidade da GAM brasileira neste período, permitindo uma relativa predição dos problemas mais relevantes e dos avanços, assim como as tendências do futuro da GAM no país. Constatamos que, embora tenham ocorridos significativos avanços no quadro financeiro, de organização e infraestrutura disponíveis para a modalidade, ainda persistem problemas característicos do esporte amador brasileiro caracterizado pela realização de projetos de trabalho sem sequência e continuidade, marcado pela improvisação e pela falta de recursos financeiros na formação e preparação dos atletas. Finalmente, dispusemos de algumas informações que auxiliaram em um conhecimento mais realista deste esporte o que, por conseguinte, poderá auxiliar na tomada de decisões para o seu desenvolvimento tanto em nível nacional como internacional
Abstract: It was possible to observed in recent years, a significant improvement in the international results of Brazilian gymnastics. Despite this perceptible progress, it is difficult to evaluate, objectively, the level of development of this competitive sport in to Brazilian Sport scenario. There are few data available for this Sport, revealing a lack of research who enable a careful and precise analysis of the issues who surround the development of this Sport. Thus, the aim of this study was to describe the panorama of Brazilian men's Artistic Gymnastics (MAG) in the last Olympic cycle (2005-2008), with emphasis in the following dimensions: competitive, economic, organizational and infrastructure. To reach our purpose, we analyzed the current situation of the gymnastic states federations affiliated to the Brazilian Gymnastics Confederation (CBG), as well as a detailed analysis of various other aspects such as: number and quality of the gymnasts who are affiliated in the states federations; number of Brazilian gymnasts participants in the national and international level; number of Brazilian judges and their classification according to FIG; number of affiliated clubs and their distribution in national territory; the funding for this Sport in Brazil; among other aspects. Methodologically we did a bibliographic and documentary research followed by a field study consisting of a questionnaire sent to the gymnastics federations, and interviews with gymnasts, coaches, judges and officials. This study reveal, with greater details, the status of Brazilian MAG in this period, showing the developments and also allowing a prognostication of the most important problems, as well as the future trends of this Sport. We found that although significant advances have occurred in the financial, organizational and infrastructure available for the sport, some problems remain as a characteristic of an amateur sport. This is characterized by the implementation of projects without sequence and continuity, marked by improvisation and a lack of financial resources to support the training and preparation of gymnasts. We believe that this study has information which can help with a more realistic knowledge of this Sport in Brazil. This understanding can assist the development of Brazilian MAG in the international e national levels
Mestrado
Educação Fisica e Sociedade
Mestre em Educação Física

Thesis (MBA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.
Revenue derived from the sales of diamonds contributes significantly towards economic growth, with a GDP share of about 10 per cent. A significant decline in diamond revenue will therefore affect economic growth and contributes negatively to the socio-economic upliftment of the Namibian nation. A case in point was the effects of the global financial crisis on the diamond industry. This study aims to analyse the impact of the global financial crisis on the diamond industry supply chain in the Namibian context. The supply chain analysis involves the studying of the whole chain from the mining of the ore into the chain to the delivering of the rough diamond to the cutting and polishing factories. The main sectors involved in the supply chain are the supply sector which is involved in the extracting of the ore from open-cast, underground, alluvial and sea-bed mines, processing the ore into rough diamonds ready for sorting. The processing sector is involved with maximising the value by undertaking valuations and sorting, which determine the price that is paid for the stones and the presentation sorting which is the process whereby diamonds are prepared for sale in line with clients’ polished requirements. The demand sector is involved in the sales and marketing of the rough diamonds. The following areas have been focused on to analyse the sectors: 1. The market competitiveness, using Porter’s 5-force analysis. 2. A SWOT analysis to determine internal and external environments of the respective sectors. 3. Trend reviews of the activity in each sector for the years 2000–2009. 4. The causes and the responses to the impact of the global financial crisis on each of the sectors. The aim of the analysis is to create a deeper insight into the forces and the impact these forces are having on the rough diamond supply chain. The research revealed that the 2007–2009 global financial crisis had a negative impact on the levels of diamond production in Namibia and also on the economic growth and the living standards of a number of retrenched workers. The study further reveals that despite the negative effects of the global financial crisis, there are positive signs of economic recovery and employment creation.

During the economic boom of the late nineties and early noughties, the last Labour government identified paid employment obtained from the competitive labour market as a realistic goal for people disabled by mental illness. Despite the effects of the financial crash of 2008 and the consequent recession, its successors have continued to argue this is the case. One of the foundation stones of the policies they have used to pursue this goal is a biopsychosocial model of health, which sides with medicine in the longstanding dispute about the validity of the concept of mental illness. This model was used by the UK government to identify paid employment obtained from the competitive labour market as evidence of recovery in and recovery from mental illness. It did this by drawing on the belief recovery is an individual journey, the outcomes of disabled people's lives are determined by acts of agency; the language, but not the thinking, used by the disability movement to draw a distinction between disability and impairment; and research arguing people with a history of mental illness want to work and that they can obtain work from the competitive market when they are provided with appropriate support. Another one is neoclassical economics: a static, deductive and utilitarian theory-driven economic model that has dominated UK policy since the late seventies. Like the government's preferred approach to recovery, neoclassical economics prioritises agency over structure. It argues labour market activity is a risk-driven endeavour and that economies have natural rates of unemployment, which can only be reduced by the state dismantling institutions preventing scarce resources such as labour from being distributed via price competition. As with medical thinking about mental distress, the neoclassical idealisation of the labour market has its critics. Amongst them are the old institutional economics, the new institutional economics, stratification economics and the new economic sociology. Different mixtures of empiricism, inductive thinking, theorising and attitudes towards neoclassicism ranging from relative enthusiasm to outright hostility, have for different reasons, led them to conclude to various degrees that institutions are necessary to impose order on uncertainty, unemployment can be a consequence of their influence and the state has to take this on board when taking policy initiatives. The disputes within economics and between economics and sociology about the role of agency, structure and the state in the labour market raise doubts about the efficacy of the UK government's welfare to work policies regarding people disabled by mental illness. Doubts that have been echoed in comments made by the OECD in 2014, which voiced concern about the UK governments marginalisation of structural influences on the labour market. Surprisingly, the literature on disability and employability has not engaged with this dispute. This study starts to address this failure by drawing on the above models mental illness and the labour market activity to analyse how the UK government's welfare to work policies have affected demand from private sector employers in Scotland for labour from jobless people who have been disabled by mental illness. The analysis was conducted in two stages. First, it used evidence about the financial crisis of 2008 and statistics from the Westminster and Holyrood governments to paint a macroeconomic picture of the Scottish labour market for the period between 2008 and 2013. Then it conducted semi-structured interviews with thirty private sector employers about their understanding of mental illness and the labour market. The initial part of the analysis argues rational price competition between private financial organisations caused the flow of money through western economies to dry up and that this caused the global financial crisis of 2008 and the deepest worldwide recession since the 1930's. Then it shows the UK government's adherence to neoclassicism led it to respond to these developments by directing government spending away from redistribution and service provision towards facilitating market competition and that the current tranche of welfare to work policies are part of this response. Finally, it uses figures from the Scottish and UK government for the period between March 2008 and March 2013 to look at the challenges facing these policies. Here it is shown that although the rise in unemployment has been relatively small given the depth of the recession. However it is also shown that there has been a sharp rise in underemployment, a significant drop in the number of vacancies and that private sector demand for labour will have to grow by as much as a third if the Scottish labour market is to successfully absorb those people with a history of mental illness the UK government hopes to move off disability benefits. The second part found employers tend to link mental illness with strange and unpredictable behaviour; hold stigmatising beliefs about people with a history of these conditions; only hire them when information, which has been obtained independently of any vacancy, suggests they possess the technical and social skills necessary to fit in with how they do business; and they can discount the value of their labour. It then goes on to demonstrate five things. The first is that employers think workplace teams are different from the sum of their parts and that this has led them to believe the outcomes of recruitment decisions are always uncertain. The second is they protect themselves against uncertainty by taking a sequential approach to recruitment, one that involves ranking the sources of information they use to make recruitment decisions in terms of cost and reliability. In order of preference, these are personal experience, the experience of people they trust, recruitment agencies and open competition. The third is that their behaviour as they descend this hierarchy initially mirrors the thinking of the new economic sociology and stratification economists, then the new institutional economics until finally, it comes to bear its closest resemblance to neoclassical economics. The fourth is that employers descend the hierarchy for as long as their desire for profit outweighs their fear of harm. The implications of this sequential multifaceted approach to recruitment for the ability of the UK governments welfare to work policies to improve the employability of people disabled by mental illness are identified by drawing on Zelizer's ideas about the role of connected worlds, circuits of commerce and media of exchange in economic activity. These ideas emerged in response to the under and over socialised thinking about the economy such as that offered by the new neoclassical economics, the new institutional economics and the new economic sociology. They form a line of thought that resonates strongly with the heterodox approach to economic analysis of the old institutional economics and stratification economics. They also provide a theoretical framework - that does not automatically blame the jobless for being unemployed - to hang the findings of this study about employers’ multifaceted approach to recruitment; the co-existence of large numbers of vacancies and high rates of unemployment; the peripheral role played by human resources professionals in most recruitment decisions; the ignorance of employers about the UK government's welfare to work policies; and employers’ hostility towards welfare to work contractors. Taken together, the findings of this study indicate the people with a history of mental illness who will benefit most from the UK government's welfare to work policies will be those who inhabit the same social circles as private sector employers or those who have access to them.
They also suggest these policies will be unlikely to increase the demand for their labour to anything like the degree necessary to absorb the numbers of them that will be moving off disability benefits. However, by using Zelizer's thinking about circuits of commerce and connected worlds to frame them, they offer hope welfare to work policies can be developed that recognise the importance of paid employment to recovery without conflating them. A set of policies that acknowledge the influence of impairments, social structures, job-related skills, and competition on employability, which accepts people diagnosed with mental illnesses will often need to be provided with rights and access to resources over and above those that support them to look for work. Realising this possibility will require researchers in disability studies to engage with the economic and sociological debates about the labour market and build relationships with businesses, economists and other branches of sociology that are conducive to investigating how the economic and social lives of employers influence their targeting of pools of labour; clarifying when it is possible to include people with a history of mental illness in these pools, establishing how to go about doing this, determining when it is in their interests to do so and identifying what to do when it is not.

Esta dissertação analisa os determinantes do investimento na economia brasileira no período compreendido entre 2003 e 2008, com enfoque teórico na teoria das restrições financeiras. Para efetuar tal análise, esse trabalho apresenta as principais teorias do investimento presentes na literatura, assim como os principais trabalhos que abordam a questão da relevância ou não da estrutura de capital no financiamento do investimento, com destaque àqueles que inserem a assimetria informacional no escopo teórico. Em seguida, são apresentados os trabalhos que defendem a importância da restrição financeira na determinação do investimento da firma. Para enriquecer a argumentação, é feita uma análise histórica da trajetória da taxa de investimento brasileira e da estrutura de capital das empresas nacionais, e um resumo dos principais trabalhos que estudaram os determinantes do investimento na economia brasileira, com destaque para os que incorporam as restrições financeiras. Por fim, a partir de dados de balanços patrimoniais e segregando a amostra por porte da empresa, um modelo de dados de painel é desenvolvido para testar a hipótese de restrição financeira nas firmas brasileiras de mercado aberto no período.
This dissertation analyzes the determining factors for investment in the Brazilian economy over the 2003-2008 period, with a theoretical focus on financial constraints. To conduct such analysis, this paper presents the main investment theories in the available literature, as well as the main papers that address the issue concerning the relevance, or not, of capital structure in financing investment, highlighting those that insert informational asymmetry into the theoretical scope. Following this are the works that defend the importance of financial constraints when deciding on a company’s investment. For a more in-depth examination, an historical analysis is carried out on the course not only of the Brazilian investment rate, but also of the capital structure of Brazilian companies. In addition, a summary of the main papers containing studies on the determining factors for investment in the Brazilian economy is presented, highlighting those [papers] that incorporate financial constraints. Finally, based on data from balance sheets and taking samples per company-size, a panel-data model is developed to test the hypothesis of financial constraints in publicly-listed Brazilian firms in the period in question.
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Instituto de Economia, Rio de Janeiro, 2010
Bibliografia: p. 88-94

L’analyse des dépêches des agences de presse française (AFP) et espagnole (EFE) à l’aide du logiciel libre IRaMuTeQ permet de visualiser, d’une part la macrostructure qui montre une convergence entre les deux corpus, et d’autre part des microstructures qui distinguent des traitements spécifiques par les agences des deux pays, associant une classification du vocabulaire et une comparaison interprétative des structures lexicales, révèle une focalisation différente : lorsque l’AFP établit une distinction entre les aspects économiques (contexte mondial) et politiques (contexte national), l’EFE l’aborde davantage comme un problème politique en lien direct avec l’économie nationale et l’Europe. L’impact du vécu de la crise sur le discours médiatique est confirmé par une dernière analyse de la dimension chronologique qui révèle, dans les deux cas, l’impact d’un changement électoral. L’approche textométrique permet donc de reconstruire une histoire à partir des relations existantes entre textes, co-textes et contextes, c’est-à-dire entre les évènements socio-historiques, les producteurs de discours médiatiques et des structures lexicales formalisées
The analysis of the news from the French Agency (AFP) and the Spanish (EFE) allows visualizing, on the one hand, a convergence in the macroestructure of the corpus and, on the other hand, a specific treatment of each country in the microstructure, a deeper analysis, combining a classification of vocabulary and an interpretive comparison of lexical structures, reveals a different focusing: while the AFP makes a distinction between the economic aspects (global context) and political ones (national context), the EFE takes it up more strenuously as a political issue directly related to the national economy and Europe. These results have been obtained with the help of the software IRaMuTeQ. The impact of the experience of the crisis on the media discourse is confirmed by the final analyses of the chronological dimension which reveals, in south cases, the impact of an electoral change. The use of textometric approach allows us the building of the story with the relations among the texts, the co-texts and the contexts, that is, among the socio-historical events, the producers of the media discourse and the lexical structures used

Les conséquences des chocs économiques négatifs sur les ménages ont été documentés extensivement, mais on en sait beaucoup moins sur la manière dont ces chocs sont transmis aux individus à travers la médiation du ménage. Le ménage contribue-il à modérer l'effet des chocs négatifs ? Dans quelle mesure le choc économique pèse-t-il dans la négociation familiale ? À partir de données sur la crise économique argentine de 2001, je montre d'abord que les femmes en couple ont une plus grande probabilité de devenir actives si leur mari a fait l'expérience d'un choc de revenu. Ensuite, je montre que le cycle économique importe dans les décisions d'investissement en capital humain. Sur le long terme, les profils de salaire et d'employabilité des hommes argentins sont affectés de manière persistante par les conditions économiques initiales au moment de l'obtention du diplôme. Enfin, je considère la dimension “man-cession” de la crise économique de 2009 en Espagne et montre que la part des ressources du ménage reçues par les femmes pour leur consommation privée augmente avec la diminution de l'écart des taux de chômage hommes-femmes, confortant l'hypothèse que les chocs négatifs modifient le pouvoir de négociation des individus au sein du ménage
The consequences of adverse aggregate shocks on households have been repeatedly documented, but far less has been said on the way they are passed over to individuals through the mediation of the household. Does the household contribute in mitigating the effects? Or does the economic shock rather invite itself at the family negociating table? Using the Argentine 2001 economic crisis as a natural experiment, I first show that married women are more likely to enter the labor market if their husband experienced a loss in income, giving credit to the insurance mechanism. Then, I show that the business cycle matters for investments in education, and that long run labor outcomes of Argentine men are persistently affected by the initial conditions upon graduation. Finally, I consider the “Mancession” dimension of the Great Recession in Spain and demonstrate that the resource share accruing to wives for own consumption increases together with the decreasing unemployment gap, which comes in support to the bargaining hypothesis

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in a new era of globalisation and with it, intensified levels of global migration. The movement of people across increasingly fluid and penetrable boundaries has altered the demographic profile of European states and this cultural diversity has confronted contemporary Western liberal democracies with a unique set of challenges concerning the integration of diverse groups into society for the purpose of fostering cohesion and domestic stability. The effects of cultural diversity are not limited to demographics however, and this thesis focuses predominantly on the political and public responses that this phenomenon has evoked. The context of the Netherlands provides a particularly enlightening example of the way in which attempts to manage cultural diversity have stimulated intensive debate on immigration and integration topics, which have subsequently become firmly ensconced within public and political discourse. This ongoing debate in the Dutch context has brought to the fore wider questions pertaining to citizenship, national identity and culture. More importantly, these issues have exposed the limits of Dutch tolerance: increasingly restrictionist immigration and integration policy over the last two decades, and in the last 10 years in particular, has appeared incongruous with stereotypical perceptions of the Netherlands as an ultra-liberal and progressive paragon of multiculturalism. This thesis therefore seeks to rework this image of the Netherlands by observing possible shifts in public attitudes towards immigrants and immigration in the context of considerably less favourable material circumstances, occasioned by the current global financial crisis. Attitudes towards Muslims in Dutch society are of particular interest to this research given the particular cultural and symbolic threat that Islam is considered to pose to liberal values. Realistic Group Conflict Theory provides a useful framework for analysing inter-group competition and conflict stemming from both material and non-material perceptions of threat. Whilst particular focus is accorded to the specific macro-economic conditions of the ongoing financial crisis for observing potentially shifting sentiments, this discussion is situated within a larger national debate about immigration and integration spanning two decades. Linking public perception data to analyses of Dutch integration and immigration policy, patterns of voting behaviour and the real effects of the financial crisis on the Dutch economy, the ultimate intention of this research, then, is to assess the prospects and overall “health” of liberal democracy in the Netherlands. The country‟s experiences in attempting to deal with cultural pluralism reveal that liberal democratic norms have not simply been entrenched as “givens” and they are subject to contestation and ambiguity. It is in attempts to address difference and “otherness” in society that the shortfalls of Dutch liberal democracy have been laid bare.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Met die val van die Berlynse Muur in 1989 het „n nuwe tydperk van globalisasie aangebreek en daarmee saam, verskerpte vlakke van globale migrasie. Die beweging van mense oor meer toegangklike grense het die demografiese profiel van Europese state verander. Hierdie kulturele diversiteit het huidige Westerse liberale demokrasieë met „n unieke stel uitdagings gekonfronteer, aangaande die integrasie van diverse groepe in die samelewing met die doel om saamhorigheid te bevorder. Die effek van kulturele diversiteit is egter nie beperk tot demografie nie en hierdie tesis fokus hoofsaaklik op die politieke en openbare reaksies wat die verskynsel uitgelok het. Die Nederlandse konteks verskaf „n besondere insiggewende voorbeeld van die manier waarop pogings om kulturele diversiteit te hanteer, intensiewe debat oor immigrasie- en integrasie-onderwerpe gestimuleer het, wat sedertdien stewig in die openbare en politieke diskoers verskans is. Die voortdurende debat in die Nederlandse verband het wyer vrae aangaande burgerskap, nasionale identiteit en kultuur laat ontstaan. Selfs van groter belang is die feit dat hierdie vraagstukke die perke van Nederlandse verdraagsaamheid ontbloot het: toenemende inperkings op immigrasie- en integrasie-beleid oor die afgelope twee dekades en veral in die laaste 10 jaar, het teenstrydig voorgekom met die stereotipiese indruk van Nederland as „n ultra-liberale en progressiewe toonbeeld van multi-kulturalisme. Hierdie tesis be-oog derhalwe om hierdie beeld van Nederland te ondersoek deur moontlike veranderings in openbare houdings teenoor immigrante en immigrasie waar te neem, teen die agtergrond van aansienlik minder gunstige materiële omstandighede, veroorsaak deur die huidige globale finansiële krisis. Houdings teenoor Moslems in die Nederlandse samelewing is van besondere belang in hierdie ondersoek teen die agtergrond van die beweerde kulturele en simboliese bedreiging wat Islam vir liberale waardes inhou. Realistiese Groep-Konflikteorie voorsien „n nuttige raamwerk om inter-groep wedywering en konflik, wat spruit uit beide materiële en nie-materiële perspesies van bedreiging, te analiseer. Alhoewel besondere aandag geskenk word aan die spesifieke makro-ekonomiese omstandighede van die huidige finansiële krisis om moontlike veranderings in houdings waar te neem, is hierdie bespreking deel van „n groter nasionale debat oor immigrasie en integrasie oor die afgelope twee dekades. Deur inligting oor openbare persepsie te verbind met die Nederlandse integrasie-en immigrasie-beleid, stempatrone en die ware uitwerkings van die finansiële krisis op die Nederlandse kultuur, is die uiteindelike doel van hierdie navorsing om die vooruitsigte en algehele “gesondheid” van liberale demokrasie in Nederland te evalueer. Die land se ervaring van kulturele pluralisme bewys dat liberale demokratiese norme nie verskans is nie en dat hulle onderhewig is aan omstredenheid en dubbelsinnigheid. Die pogings om verskille en “andersheid” in die samelewing aan te spreek, het die tekortkominge van die Nederlandse liberale demokrasie ontbloot.

Defence date: 6 October 2006
Examining board: Prof. I.A.A. Thompson, University of Keele ; Prof. Alfredo Floristán, Universidad de Alcalá ; Prof. Bartolomé Yun, IUE/Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla ; Prof. Diogo R. Curto, IUE/Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Supervisor)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Witwatersrand, South Africa Wits School of Governance, 2017
This research addresses three questions: how Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) following the post-election violence of 2007/2008 in Kenya are recreating their community resilience capacities; how the Kenyan government and non-state interventions are influencing the victims’ livelihood strategies towards their reconstruction and recovery process and how social support and social capital has accelerated their reconstruction and recovery process. It proposes a post-conflict reconstruction and recovery approach based on the research findings. The research adopted Qualitative research methodology and primary data were collected from the month of January, 2015 continuously and concurrently with data analysis. The key findings were that ownership of land is perceived and identified as a milestone in the process of post-conflict reconstruction and recovery, an avenue for community resilience. The main means of livelihood for IDPs are casual labour and other menial jobs. The Kenyan government has made an effort towards resettlement of IDPs although this is ad hoc and ineffective due to lack of experience and a specific framework for any major resettlement. NGOs abandoned the reconstruction and recovery projects as soon as the humanitarian crisis ended. But the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had reconstruction and recovery projects which ended in 2011. In displacement, IDPs lost their original support system, but developed new emergent norms to support each other. Integration of IDPs is a better option in the reconstruction and recovery process compared to the government farm resettlement approach. The key recommendations are that government should evaluate the economic loss of every integrated IDP and those resettled in government procured farms should be provided with legal ownership documents. There should be an urgent re-profiling of IDPs in camps and use of UN Guiding Principles on IDPs to re-integrate them into society. The findings of this research bring to light new knowledge on the theory of social capital: victims of displacement develop new emergent norms, values and culture to support each other, which eventually creates a new society/community. Key Words: Post-conflict reconstruction and recovery; integrated IDPs; government resettled IDPs; camp-based IDPs; social capital: social support; livelihood strategies.
E.R. 2019

Defence date: 17 January 2017
Examining Board: Professor Donatella della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore/ formerly EUI (supervisor); Professor Hanspeter Kriesi, EUI; Professor Eva Anduiza, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Professor Robert M. Fishman, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
This thesis deals with the Spanish cycle of protest in the shadow of the Great Recession. It has a twofold aspiration. On the one hand, from a process-based approach, it seeks to unravel the timing of the cycle of contention that evolved in light of the recession scenario between 2007 and 2015. I argue that the peak of protest persisted for a long time (from mid-2011 until 2013) because institutionalisation was postponed and radicalisation contained. Specifically, I focus on three aspects, key to understanding the trajectory of collective actions: 1) issue specialisation of protest after the first triggering points, 2) alliance building between unions and new actors, and 3) the transition process towards more routinised repertoires of action that came about as protests declined. On the other hand, the thesis aims at shedding light on the role that grievances play for mobilisation dynamics in a context of material deprivation. Covering multiple levels of analysis, the main argument developed here is that the effects of objective-material aspects and socioeconomic grievances are mediated by political attitudes, especially political dissatisfaction. To empirically test my arguments, I use qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, which are combined with information from a self-collated protest event analysis and different statistical analyses based on time series, panel data and other survey materials.
Chapter 3 of the thesis is based on an article published in Partecipazione e conflitto (2016)

Defence date: 13 January 2016
Examining Board: Professor Jorge Flores, European University Institute; Professor Regina Grafe, European University Institute; Professor Leonor Freire Costa, ISEG; Professor Joseph Fradera, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
The dissertation focuses on the political economy of the Portuguese and Spanish empires during the Age of Revolutions, tracing the rise of Rio de Janeiro and Havana as global cities. It examines the political economy of the emergence of two global ports in the LusoHispanic Atlantic and appraises institutional dynamics instead of merely exploring the nature of institutions. This work contributes to the field of global history by offering an Atlantic history in global perspective. It proposes a Hemispherical Atlantic and simultaneously discloses its connections with the Indian Ocean. As a substitute of a local/global dichotomy, the dissertation resorts to the use of three different dimensions (markets, institutions and agents), which do not necessarily follow a path from global to local. The first part analyses the cities’ integration into imperial and global markets as well as their participation into much larger global commodity chains. It considers not only markets’ trends but also the emergence of translocal markets. The financing of Slave trade in the South Atlantic and flour trades in the North Atlantic are thoroughly researched. The second section emphasises on institutions and their impact on agent’s behaviour. It mainly refers to formal institutions as well as their dynamics. It fundamentally focuses on institutions governing exchange: customs houses, taxes and corporations, and carefully integrates emulation in the design, creation and evolution of formal institutions. Finally, the third section explores networks, agency relations and privateorder institutions. Besides trust and reputation, merchants’ status was crucial in the configuration and evolution of networks. Credit, multidirectional capital flows, and the consignment system are studied through the meticulous examination of merchants businesses in Africa, New England and the Peninsula, offering new insights on Asian textiles in the Caribbean markets and the slave traffic in Brazil. This thesis investigates the complexities of governance that took place in the Iberian empires, and revises images of absolutist power, centralization or negotiation. It argues that the empire’s organization was highly hierarchical (which differs from centralization) and claims that such a rigid hierarchical organization prevented to some extend institutional change and innovation. In so doing, it underlines the need for an intermediate approach between “black legend” absolutist versions and revisionist “pink histories” of the Iberian empires.

Defence date: 23 June 2006
Examining board: Giovanni Federico ; Jaime Reis (supervisor) ; Roberto Romano ; Carles Sudrià
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

This study explores the socio-economic development path of the former Trucial State of Dubai, now an economic powerhouse within the Federal State of the United Arab Emirates. This thesis emanated out of the researcher’s need to understand the development trajectory of Dubai from the perspective of a development discourse, as literature and debates on the city’s developmental trajectory have generally focused on micro-and macro-economic variables and a sectoral emphasis without considering the total and complex development matrix. The author proposes a rentier, developmental and competition (RDC) Model as a basis for understanding the state-led social and economic development of the Emirate of Dubai. Empirically, the study examines a whole raft of home-grown social and economic development policies that fall exclusively within the domain of the Dubai Strategic Plans (DSPs). Conceptually, the thesis argues that although the Dubai Inc model has successfully changed the socio-economic landscape of the Emirate, nevertheless, a soft underbelly of the model displays the exploitative nature of unbridled free market capitalism. Methodologically, triangulation backed up the qualitative research methodology by utilising a mixed-methods approach to enhance the richness of the research. Specific data collection methods used included in-depth semi-structured interviews and non-participative observation, supported by documentation analyses of relevant documents. The research findings unambiguously demonstrated that the socio-economic transformation of Dubai, between 1998 and 2008, was a result of the aforementioned hybrid model, which this thesis uses as its theoretical framework. The conclusion drawn from the study is that there is no one path to development; the Government of Dubai is cognisant of that and has thus used the capacity of the state to transform the once impoverished and marginalised sheikhdom into a ‘commodified’ city-corporate entity.
Development Studies
D. Litt. et Phil. (Developmental Studies)

The concept of strategy has advanced significantly from when the emphasis fell on comprehensive, systematic and rational planning. However, many of the assumptions that were embedded in traditional strategy models were deemed to be inadequate and outdated as we approached a new competitive milieu (Maritz, 2010). Strategic Management is still a comparatively young field and the existing toolbox of concepts and techniques remains woefully inadequate (Grant, 2010). This reality should force a re-examination of the traditional strategy paradigms (Maritz, 2010). The literature review has confirmed the observations by Maritz (2010) and Grant (2010) that indeed current strategic management paradigms or approaches were inadequate for unique business environments obtaining in a developing country in Africa, such as Zimbabwe. The motivation for this research, therefore, was to identify and recommend strategic management approaches or paradigms applicable to banks operating in a turbulent and chaotic environment. Based on an extensive literature review, in-depth interviews were conducted with six commercial banks (three that survived the turbulence and three that failed) during the period under review. The study established that the banks that survived the turbulence had a different strategic management approach from the traditional designed ones. It was also noted in this study that in turbulent environments, strategy-making is birthed through an emergent process. When events are moving at an unprecedented speed, as was happening in Zimbabwe, the time intervals between obtaining information, analysing information, taking decisions and implementing those decisions need to be tightly compressed. The researcher coined this process Strategic Intensity (SI). On the other hand, diversification as a strategy was found to be very risky for businesses that did not have a strong foundation and that were lacking in the appreciation of the risk complexion of the businesses into which they were diversifying. This research makes a significant contribution by identifying and recommending Strategic Management approaches applicable to businesses operating in a turbulent and chaotic environment in developing markets such as Zimbabwe. Furthermore, this research also contributes towards the current debate in academic literature amongst practitioners of strategy, about how strategy is really made in organisations (Maritz, 2010). The debate centres around two opposing views: one associated with strategy-making as a formal, deliberate plan, and the other associated with strategies as evolving, ever-changing sets of outcomes that are eventually realised. Finally, the researcher proposes that further studies be conducted at the end of this study.
Business Management
DBL

Defence date: 31 March 2017
Examining Board: Professor Hanspeter Kriesi, EUI (EUI Supervisor); Professor Pepper D. Culpepper, formerly EUI/University of Oxford (Co-Supervisor); Professor Mark Blyth, Brown University; Professor Niamh Hardiman, University College Dublin
This thesis explores why, and in what political process, austerity became the uniformly accepted policy response of Eurozone governments in the economic crisis of 2008–2012. It traces the path to austerity in two distinct Eurozone Member States, Ireland and Finland. Ireland, in this crisis, became a debtor country that had to do heavy domestic adjustment; Finland, by contrast, ended up in the group of Eurozone creditor countries, imposing structural adjustment programmes on the debtor countries. The analysis of the thesis emphasizes political agency behind ideas and shows the political process where perceptions about the economic crisis were formed. It argues that two types of politicization of the crisis were necessary for the outcome of interest, the prevalence of austerity, to happen. The Irish case demonstrates a two-stage process of politicization and internalization of the crisis, where the significant policy decisions were reached in a transnational, fairly technocratic policy process but were debated and internalized in domestic, redistributive and politicized process. The transnational stage was characterized by economic and practical reasoning, whereas the domestic stage represented a conflict about distributive justice. For Finland, the 2008–9 financial crisis was not domestically politicized at all. This only changed in 2010–12, when the crisis became re-interpreted as a sovereign debt crisis of the GIIPS countries. Yet the politicization in Finland did not come about as a typical domestic redistributive debate, but as a new type of supranational conflict over distributive justice. Such conflict was not primarily framed in terms of just burden-sharing, but in terms of national and European interest. It was simultaneously a debate on borders and boundaries – polity and identity – as it was about distributive justice. Alongside rhetoric, the official line of Finnish EU policy became tougher and Finland became perceived as an increasingly difficult and selfish member of the EU community.

En 2012, en pleine crise économique, le gouvernement autonome de la Catalogne convoque des élections anticipées et demande, pour la première fois depuis le retour de l’Espagne à la démocratie suivant la mort du dictateur Francisco Franco, une forte majorité afin de pouvoir mener la région vers la sécession. Plus ou moins en même temps, le groupe armé sécessionniste basque, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, annonce la fin de sa campagne meurtrière qu’elle mène depuis des décennies et qui fait plus de 800 victimes. Si l’on accusait depuis longtemps les Basques d’être plus séparatistes que les Catalans, ces nouveaux faits suggèrent un renversement des rôles de leurs mouvements sécessionnistes. En s’appuyant sur les littératures sur les mouvements sociaux et la sécession, l’objectif de cette étude est d’expliquer ce phénomène. Nous montrerons d’abord en quoi les structures économiques et institutionnelles encadrant les régions et leurs relations avec l’État central font en sorte que la crise économique espagnole (2008-2014) offre une structure d’opportunité politique pour la réussite du sécessionnisme catalan alors que cela n’a pas été le cas au Pays basque. Ensuite, nous démontrerons que le manque de synchronisme entre les processus basque et catalan de pacification des clivages de la violence politique joue un rôle déterminant sur la capacité de coopération entre nationalistes sur la question nationale durant la crise, ce qui affecte le potentiel de mobilisation sécessionniste. Enfin, nous verrons que grâce aux structures présentées tout au long de cet ouvrage, les cadres sécessionnistes mobilisés par les revendicateurs stratégiques et les fervents champions de la sécession sont plus crédibles et pertinents en Catalogne qu’au Pays basque, ce qui explique les niveaux opposés de résonance transversale du discours sécessionniste.
In 2012, in the midst of an economic crisis, the autonomous government of Catalonia called snap elections, seeking for the first time since Spain’s return to democracy following the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, a strong majority in order to lead the region towards secession. At roughly the same time, the Basque secessionist armed group, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, announced the end of its decades-long murderous campaign, which had claimed over 800 lives. If the Basques have long been accused of being more separatist than the Catalans, these new developments suggested a role reversal for both secessionist movements. By drawing from the literature on social movements and secession, the aim of this study is to explain this phenomenon. We will firstly show that the economic and institutional structures framing for the regions and their relations with the central state made it that the Spanish economic crisis (2008-2014) offered a political opportunity structure for the success of Catalan secessionism, whereas this was not the case in the Basque Country. Secondly, we will demonstrate that the lack of synchronicity between both regions’ processes of pacifying their political violence cleavages played a decisive role in determining the capacity for nationalists to cooperation on the national questions, thereby affecting the potential for secessionist mobilization. Finally, we will see that, due to the structures presented throughout this work, the secessionist frames used by the strategic claimants and the consistent champions of secession were more relevant and credible in Catalonia than in the Basque Country, which explains the opposite levels of transversal resonance of the secessionist discourse.
En 2012, en plena crisis económica, el gobierno autónomo de Cataluña convoca elecciones anticipadas y, por primera vez desde el restablecimiento de la democracia española tras la muerte del dictador Francisco Franco, exige una mayoría amplia para llevar a la región hacia la secesión. Más o menos al mismo tiempo, el grupo armado secesionista vasco, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, anuncia el fin de su campaña mortífera de décadas, que ha cobrado más de 800 víctimas. Si los vascos han sido acusados durante mucho tiempo de ser más separatistas que los catalanes, estos nuevos acontecimientos sugieren una inversión de roles de sus movimientos secesionistas. Apoyándonos en la literatura sobre los movimientos sociales y la secesión, el objetivo de este estudio es explicar este fenómeno. En primer lugar, mostraremos que las estructuras económicas e institucionales que enmarcan las regiones y sus relaciones con el Estado central aseguraron que la crisis económica española (2008-2014) proporcionara una estructura de oportunidad política para el éxito del secesionismo catalán, mientras que no fue el caso en el País Vasco. A continuación, demostraremos que la falta de sincronía entre los procesos vasco y catalán de pacificación de los clivajes de la violencia política juega un papel decisivo en determinar la capacidad de cooperación entre nacionalistas sobre la cuestión nacional durante la crisis, lo que afecta al potencial de movilización secesionista. Por último, veremos que, gracias a las estructuras presentadas a lo largo de esta encuesta, los marcos secesionistas movilizados por los reclamantes estratégicos y los fervientes defensores de la secesión han sido más creíbles y relevantes en Cataluña que en el País Vasco, lo que explica los niveles opuestos de resonancia transversal del discurso secesionista.
Al 2012, en plena crisi econòmica, el govern autònom de Catalunya convoca eleccions anticipades, demanant per primera vegada des del retorn d’Espanya a la democràcia després de la mort del dictador Francisco Franco, una majoria àmplia per dirigir la regió cap a la secessió. Més o menys alhora, el grup armat secessionista basc, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, anuncia la fi de la seva campanya mortífera de dècades, que va fer més de 800 víctimes. Si els bascos han estat acusats des de fa temps de ser més separatistes que els catalans, aquests esdeveniments suggereixen una reversió dels papers dels seus moviments secessionistes. Recolzant-nos en les literatures sobre els moviments socials i la secessió, l’objectiu d’aquest estudi és d’explicar aquest fenomen. Primer, mostrarem que les estructures econòmiques i institucionals que emmarquen les regions i les seves relacions amb l’Estat central van assegurar que la crisi econòmica espanyola (2008-2014) proporcionés una estructura d’oportunitat política per a l’èxit del secessionisme català, mentre que això no va ser el cas al País Basc. En segon lloc, demostrarem que la manca de sincronia entre els processos basc i català de pacificació dels clivatges de la violència política juga un paper decisiu en determinar la capacitat de col·laboració entre nacionalistes sobre la qüestió nacional durant la crisi, el que afecta el potencial de mobilització secessionista. Finalment, veurem que, gràcies a les estructures presentades al llarg d’aquest estudi, els marcs secessionistes mobilitzats pels reclamants estratègics i els fervents defensors de la secessió han estat més creïbles i rellevants a Catalunya que al País Basc, el que explica els nivells oposats de ressonància transversal del discurs secessionista.