Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Women – Great Britain – Economic conditions'
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1
Whitworth, Lesley. "Men, women, shops and 'little, shiny homes' : the consuming of Coventry, 1930-1939." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1997. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36346/.
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In the 1930s many people leaving the United Kingdom's depressed areas in search of work were drawn to Coventry. Companies involved in the manufacture of motor cars, electrical goods, artificial silk and machine tools were typical of those located in the city. Most incomers found work: unemployment remained at a low level whilst the city's population exploded. The city boundaries were extended, and Coventry was rapidly suburbanised in response to the heightened demand for accommodation. Private developers noted with surprise how few of the new houses were built to let. The 1936 edition of Home Market placed Coventry first on its national index of purchasing power. From the middle of the decade, the city was closely associated with rearmament and four shadow factories provided further employment opportunities. This research addresses changes in the processes and practices of (primarily non-food) shopping amongst prosperous working-class Coventry people in the 1930s. It assesses the development of new spending patterns In relation to new products and services, and examines the role played by gender in determining the who, what, when, where and why of shopping. The thesis asks how these men and women negotiated financial power and consumer choice between them and discovers that the families who benefitted most from new material opportunities were those which placed a value on togetherness'. A range of source material is utilised to interrogate and contextualise oral testimony, and to explore the development of local retail provision. relationship is established between the city's manufacturing, retail and domestic environments. The research suggests that men spent slightly more time in the home, and women slightly less during this period. It also asserts that going shopping was not necessarily about acquiring goods; that acquir1ng goods did not necessarily involve going to the shops; and that the shopper was not always a woman.
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Clifton, Naomi. "Women, work and family in England and France : a question of identity." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1999. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d39ca1d0-d8fc-4f54-aea3-fba3fd68e984.
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This thesis explores some of the individual attitudes and choices which may explain differing patterns in women's work in England and France. Women's work, however, cannot be considered outside the context of their family lives, and there exist important differences between England and France in terms of the structures in place to facilitate the combining of paid work and family commitments. It is proposed that these are related to broader social and economic structures which characterise the countries concerned, and the family and gender roles assumed by them. The question addressed, therefore, is the relationship between work identity and female identity. This is examined by comparing full-time working women, both single and with families, in the two countries. Since the question concerns meanings rather than frequencies, quantitative methods such as surveys are rejected in favour of a triangulated methodology combining repertory grid, Twenty Statements Test and in- depth interview. The results from each of these are reported separately. There is strong convergence within and clear differences between national groups, regardless of marital status. French and English groups are both committed to working, but this takes different forms in the two countries. The French women define themselves equally in terms of work, personal relationships and social lives, with relatively little conflict between them. For the English women, work identity comes first, there is more conflict between work and family roles and more tension in personal relationships. This may partly be accounted for by the English women's greater concern with career progression and personal advancement, which is more likely to conflict with family roles. The findings are related to broader issues of economic, social and family policy, historical factors, religious traditions and attitudes towards gender and equality. These themselves are seen as reflecting more general ideologies in the countries concerned. Finally, there is a consideration of questions raised by the study, and suggestions for further research.
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Lodge, Christine. "The clearers and the cleared : women, economy and land in the Scottish Highlands 1800-1900." Thesis, Connect to e-thesis, 1996. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/819/.
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Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 1996.Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, Department of Scottish History, University of Glasgow, 1996. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.
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Cummins, Neil. "Why did fertility decline? : an analysis of the individual level economics correlates of the nineteenth century fertility transition in England and France." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2009. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/39/.
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The fertility transition in nineteenth century Europe is one of economic history’s greatest puzzles. There is no consensus in the literature on the causes of this ‘fertility revolution’. Following a critical review of the empirical and theoretical literature, this thesis re-examines the economic correlates of the fertility decline through the analysis of two new datasets from England and France. For the first time, the relationship between wealth and fertility can be studied over the period of the fertility transition. Clear patterns are discovered, namely a strong positive relationship pre-transition which switches to a strongly negative relationship during the onset of the transition. Family limitation is initiated by the richest segments of society. I then introduce a simple model which links fertility and social mobility to levels of economic inequality. I argue that parents are motivated by relative status concerns and the fertility transition is a response to changes in the environment for social mobility, where increased mobility becomes obtainable through fertility limitation. This hypothesis is tested with the new micro data in England and France. Fertility decline is strongly associated with decreased levels of inequality and increased levels of social mobility. The analysis finds strong support for the role of changes in inequality and the environment for social mobility as central factors in our understandings of Europe’s fertility transition.
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Charlwood, Andrew. "The anatomy of union membership decline in Great Britain 1980-1998." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2013. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/852/.
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Between 1980 and 1998, the proportion of British employees who were union members fell from around 52 per cent to around 30 per cent. Was this decline in trade union membership mainly 'structurally determined' by changes to the economic, political and social environment, or was union failure a large part of the reason for union decline? If structural determinants were of more importance, what was the relative importance of economic and business cycle factors compared to legal and political changes, changes to employee attitudes and values and secular changes to economic organisation? This thesis seeks to answer these questions in the light of detailed econometric analysis of the micro-level processes of declining union density at the workplace level (using data from the Workplace Industrial/Employee Relations Surveys) and the individual level (using data from the British Household Panel Survey). The central argument is that environmental changes provide a more compelling explanation for union decline than explanations based on union failure. There is little evidence that changing employee attitudes and values or legal changes or the business cycle directly caused decline. Instead, secular changes to economic organisation which changed the balance of incentives associated with unionisation for firms, organisations and workers seem the most likely cause of declining union membership density. The scale and magnitude of these changes can be attributed to Government policy.
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Sambrook, Stephen Curtis. "The optical munitions industry in Great Britain 1888-1923." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2005. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3451/.
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This study examines in detail for the first time the emergence and development of a highly specialised sector of British manufacturing industry, charting its evolution and explaining its growth predominantly through scrutiny of original source material relating to the key actors in the story. It proposes that after 1888 Britain produced an optical munitions manufacturing structure which succeeded in dominating production of the most militarily important and commercially valuable instrument in the field, and which by 1914 had achieved an hegemonical position in the international marketplace. The study also overturns the conclusions of the previous brief scholarship on the topic, asserting that the industry responded well to the challenges of the Great War and going on to show that there was a difficult, but ultimately successful translation back to peace. This largely ignored branch of British technological manufacturing performed effectively and ran counter to notions of the relative decline or comparative failure of industries in the sector, and the narrative puts forward reasons to explain that success. To do this, the account employs a methodology embracing a combination of theories and models of historical explanation to demonstrate reasons for the industry’s path and to test the interpretations put forward.
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Malik, Aisha Anees. "Strategies of British-Pakistani Muslim women : 'subject' and 'agency' reconsidered through (an) analysis of marriage, divorce and everyday life." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265512.
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This dissertation explores the experiences of British Muslim women of Pakistani ethnic origin living in Slough in the south-east of England in matters related to maITiage, divorce and everyday life by looking into their private and social worlds in a diasporic space. Pakistanis in Britain have seen a shift in their identity from being cast as south Asians to Muslims. Women belonging to this immigrant group are increasingly being seen as 'Muslim' with an automatic inference of their being oppressed victims. When these women exhibit agency dispelling the victim image, it is read within the sole perspective of religiosity framing them only as 'Muslim women' and ignoring other facets of their being. Their experiences as British citizens and members of an ethnic minority community, the rootedness of their regional affiliations in Pakistan, class, age and their location at intersections of historical and geographical movements are subsumed by an essentialized understanding of their being Muslim. An investigation into the strategies of British-Pakistani Muslim women in Slough negotiating issues of space, clothing, language, education, employment, religiosity, ethnicity, identity, and most importantly, marriage and divorce calls for a reconsideration of notions of subject and agency. Drawing on feminist interpretations, the thesis recasts these women as 'strategizing-agentic' subjects who exhibit agency drawing from diverse even oppositional traditions. Ethnographic research methods are used to generate qualitative data that details the experiences of British-Pakistani Muslim women in Slough.
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Andrews, Amanda R., University of Western Sydney, of Arts Education and Social Sciences College, and School of Humanities. "The great ornamentals : new vice-regal women and their imperial work 1884-1914." THESIS_CAESS_HUM_Andrews_A.xml, 2004. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/487.
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This thesis traces the evolution and emergence of the new-vice regal woman during a high point of the British Empire. The social, political and economic forces of the age, which transformed British society, presented different challenges and responsibilities for all women, not least those of the upper-class. Aristocratic women responded to these challenges in a distinctive manner when accompanying their husbands to the colonies and dominions as vice-regal consorts. In the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign a unique link was established between the monarchy and her female representatives throughout the Empire. The concept of the new vice-regal woman during the period 1884-1914 was explored through three case studies. The imperial stores of Lady Hariot Dufferin (1843-1936), Lady Ishbel Aberdeen (1857-1939), and Lady Rachel Dudley (c.1867-1920), establishes both the existence and importance of a new breed of vice-regal woman, one who was a modern, dynamic and pro-active imperialist. From 1884-1914 these three new vice-regal women pushed established boundaries and broke new ground. As a result, during their vice-regal lives, Ladies Dufferin, Aberdeen and Dudley initiated far reaching organisations in India, Ireland, Canada andDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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Pizzoni, Giada. "Economic and financial strategies of the British Catholic community in the age of mercantilism, 1672-1781." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7783.
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This dissertation examines the British Catholic community during the Age of Mercantilism. It opens with John Aylward's trade in the early 1670s and closes with the death of Bishop Richard Challoner in the late eighteenth century. By investigating the economic and financial strategies of these individuals, this work dispels the stereotype of idle Catholicism and shows how the Catholic community played a relevant role in the emerging Atlantic economy. The work starts with an analysis of John Aylward's dealings during outbreaks of international warfare. His papers prove that Catholicism was crucial in his business, allowing the adoption of various strategies and access to diverse markets. As a merchant Aylward defies the stereotype of religious minorities' communality in trade, by moving beyond religious and national borders. Moreover, he challenges the stereotype of Catholicism as estranged from capitalism. The dissertation further continues with an analysis of his widow Helena Aylward, as merchant and financier. Her skills and strategies allow the extension of the narrative of enterprise and Catholicism to women as well, by challenging the prevailing role of Catholic women as patrons or nuns. Finally, the last chapter analyses the business accounts of Bishop Richard Challoner, Vicar Apostolic of the London Mission. His dealings exemplify how Catholicism played a relevant role in finance, both individually and institutionally. In fact, the British Catholic Church fundamentally sustained itself through the stock market. Therefore, this work proves that Catholics were entrepreneurs: they built coherent trading zones and through a broad range of Atlantic connections, moved beyond the borders of the European Empires. They disregarded religious affiliations and nationalities, suggesting that the new economic and financial opportunities of the Age of Mercantilism allowed the Catholic Community to integrate into the British economy and eventually to achieve toleration.
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Perrone, Fernanda Helen. "The V.A.D.S. and the great war /." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66086.
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Tabet, Marie-Christine. "Household labour supply in Great Britain : can policy-makers rely on neoclassical models?" Thesis, University of Sussex, 2010. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/2358/.
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This thesis empirically examines whether the neoclassical economic model provides an adequate framework to analyse a couple's labour supply behaviour in Britain using recent data from the British Household Panel Survey. The thesis comprises three empirical chapters. The first chapter uses the instrumental variable (IV) estimation procedure to model the hours of work of married couples. This approach allows us to test whether some of the assumptions of the neoclassical model (e.g., income pooling and Slutsky properties) are satisfied by the data. In addition, further variables that have been identified as distribution factors in the literature are introduced to the empirical model to assess whether they play a role in explaining a couple's hours of work. The first chapter only considers couples in which both spouses work. In the second chapter, the sample is amended to include all couples (i.e., those that work and those that do not) and the analysis conducted models a couple's labour market participation decisions rather than their hours of work. After testing for income pooling and the impact of distribution factors, a further variable, the wife's mother-in-law work status when the male spouse was aged 14, is introduced into the model. This is done to determine the effect of 'cultural' variables on labour market decisions. In the last chapter, this issue is explored further by explicitly modelling attitudes to a woman's role in the labour market. This approach uses a bivariate ordered probit model given the ordinal nature of responses to the attitudinal questions and again restricts the analysis to couples only. Finally, gender-role attitudes are introduced to the labour supply framework used in the second chapter in order to evaluate whether beliefs regarding women's role impact on a couple's labour market decisions.
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Mansi, Kamel Mahmoud Saleh. "Socio-economic and cultural obstacles to ethnic minority women's engagement in economic activity : a case study of Yemeni women in the UK." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2005. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.673819.
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Peri-Rotem, Nitzan. "The role of religion in shaping women's family and employment patterns in Britian and France." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e0cedea1-973c-4395-9916-d47416672802.
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The current study examines the influence of religious affiliation and practice on family patterns and labour market activity for women in Western Europe, focusing on Britain and France. While both countries have experienced a sharp decline in institutionalized forms of religion over the past decades, differences in family and fertility behaviour on the basis of religiosity seem to persist. Although previous studies documented a positive correlation between religion and both intended and actual family size, there is still uncertainty about the different routes through which religion affects fertility, how structural factors are involved in this relationship and whether and how this relationship has changed along with the process of religious decline. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring the interrelationships between religion, educational attainment, female labour force participation, union formation and fertility levels. The data come from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which contains 18 waves from 1991 to 2008, and the French survey of the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP), which was initially conducted in 2005. By following trends in fertility differences by religious affiliation and practice across birth cohorts of women, it is found that religious differences in fertility are not only persistent across birth cohorts, there is also a growing divide between non-affiliated and religiously practicing women who maintain higher fertility levels. Religious differences in family formation patterns and completed fertility are also explored, taking into account the interaction between education and religiosity. It appears that the effect of education on fertility differs by level of religiosity, as higher education is less likely to lead to childlessness or to a smaller family size among more religious women. The findings on the relationships between family and work trajectories by level of religiosity also point to a reduced conflict between paid employment and childbearing among actively religious women, although these patterns vary by religious denomination and by country.
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Meacci, Mara. "Technological change and growth dynamics : an analysis of UK industries." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2003. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:91cc65e8-a2e9-4fe5-9d05-392a82661e4a.
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In this work we investigate the sources and growth effects of technological innovation in UK industries over the years 1966-1993. Our main finding is that technological activities are always beneficial to labour productivity growth and normally also beneficial to employment growth. Moreover, it is possible to aggregate industries into fairly stable technological clusters, and the main sources of innovation change broadly in accordance with the technological characterisation of the industry. We also analyse the effect of inter-industry demand transmissions on employment share dynamics, and find that these effects are generally important. However, demand expansions in customer industries do not always imply expanding employment shares in supplying industries, and we did not find any evident linkage between the sign of the demand effect and the technological characterisation of industries. Testing the models developed to fit observed changes in labour productivity and employment shares over the periods 1974-79 and 1979-91, we find that growth dynamics over the period 1974-79 have been more related to technological change than over the period 1979-91. In particular, pure capital deepening has been one of the main engines of growth over the period 1979-91.
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Weghmann, Vera. "Employability and the rise of the no-wage economy : resistance to unpaid work in the United Kingdom." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50869/.
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Employability has become a new buzzword of the 21st century. It advocates that to keep oneself attractive - through lifelong learning and the continuous acquisition of skills - protects oneself from the vulnerabilities of the labour market. The purpose of this PhD project is twofold: First, I investigate in what ways the employability agenda recreates neoliberal hegemony. Second, I analyse through what type of collective agency people contest the concept of employability. It is a comparative project of two main employability sectors, namely welfare to work programmes and higher education. In particular, I elaborate on the link between employability and the rise of unpaid labour in form of work-experiences. In line with neo-Gramscian theory and my critique of it this PhD research looks at the material structures, institutions and ideology which have shaped the political economy of employability through processes of class contestation. Participatory Action Research methodology is used to provide insights into the formations, dynamics, and outcomes of the main social forces resisting employability outside of established trade unions. This PhD, thereby, feeds into broader discussions on the decline and future of trade unionism and new ways of organising around work, which go beyond the workplace and might demand new workers institutions as well as a greater engagement with other actors in the community.
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Whitworth, Adam. "Work, care and social inclusion : lone motherhood under New Labour." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.670080.
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Wilson, John Campbell. "A history of the UK renewable energy programme, 1974-88 : some social, political, and economic aspects." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2012. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3121/.
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Following the global oil crisis of October 1973 the UK government funded and administered a range of R&D programmes in renewable energy. Despite the discoveries of large deposits of oil and gas in the North Sea during the late 1960s and continuing faith in nuclear energy the government was keen to explore the potential of renewable energy as what it described as an ‘insurance technology’. This thesis examines the creation and evolution of the UK renewable energy programme from 1974 until its demise prior to the privatisation of the UK’s nationalised energy industries in the late 1980s. The thesis shows the important role that social movements - in this case, the new environmentalism - played in the promotion of renewable energy in the UK. This will suggest that the programme can be seen in some senses as a tokenistic gesture by the government acting within the uncertain political, social, and economic landscape of the 1970s. This thesis shows that government decisions on renewable energy were continually driven by socio-political factors which overwhelmed the unreliable economic case for renewables at that time. This is achieved by a close historical account of the two key elements of the wider programme: the Wave Energy Programme and the Wind Energy Programme. Using a mix of the existing literature, historical archive and interviews this thesis builds a historical account of renewable energy R&D in the UK between 1974 and 1988.
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Rogers, Christopher James. "The politics of economic policy-making under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan and the 1976 IMF crisis." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2793/.
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The thesis examines the politics of economic policy-making during the Wilson / Callaghan administration with a specific focus on the 1976 IMF crisis. It offers a critique of existing accounts that are based on an artificial distinction between state and market, in which there is an assumed power relationship that allows market actors to discipline state managers when policies diverge from accepted principles and norms, and argue that the fall in the value of sterling and IMF conditionality were examples of this disciplinary potential at work during 1976. This thesis presents a substantial, archive-based re-assessment of events from an open Marxist perspective. It argues that the state is an inherent feature of the social relations of capitalist accumulation, and that whilst this means state managers must pursue policies generally favouring the reproduction of the social relations of production, this constraint is not disciplinary or deterministic. The thesis shows that the Labour government had long established preferences for deflationary policies and argues that they were implemented through the politics of depoliticisation. On this basis, the fall in the value of the pound and ultimately, IMF conditionality, are not understood to be the key determinants of policy outputs. Rather, market rhetoric and IMF conditionality are seen to have provided the Labour government with substantial room for manoeuvre to implement policies aimed at creating favourable conditions for accumulation whilst minimising political dissent by acting as a buttress between the government and its policies. The argument is developed in three phases. Firstly, it demonstrates how despite the manifesto commitments of the Labour Party, significant elements of the core executive had consistent and established preferences for the depreciation of sterling, a transfer of resources into the balance of payments, cuts in expenditure, and incomes policies. Secondly, it shows how austerity measures were justified during 1975 and the first half of 1976 by a slide in the exchange rate and expected external financing pressures, despite a wish to see the pound fall. Finally, it shows how in the final quarter of 1976, the core executive delayed taking fiscal action until after the IMF negotiations because of expectations of conditionality, that it broadly agreed with the Fund’s prescriptions, and argued that this course was preferable to an alternative strategy because if an alternative was implemented, financial markets would force an even greater degree of austerity.
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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.
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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.
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Mackenzie, Angus. "West of Scotland industrial and commercial elites and their social, political and economic influence in the inter-war years." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5033/.
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Scotland struggled to come to terms with the collapse in the heavy industries in the early 1920s and the prolonged period of economic dislocation which followed. The pervasive sense that this was a nation in decline sapped self-confidence. This thesis examines the response of the leading West of Scotland industrialists to the extended inter-war trade depression. Focusing on their championing of a series of self-help initiatives firmly rooted in Scotland itself, the thesis reimagines Graeme Morton’s work on Unionist Nationalism for the more challenging conditions of 1930s Scotland, introducing a much stronger economic dimension to Morton’s original argument. Echoing Morton, the rationalisation of the staple industries and the creation of new institutions to aid recovery owed much to the associational culture of West of Scotland business. The Scottish National Development Council and the Scottish Economic Committee - two significant stepping-stones in the rise of corporatist planning - represented a confident assertion of a distinctly Scottish voice and provided a link between business and the increasingly autonomous Scottish Office. The explicit articulation of a Scottish national interest within the parameters of the existing union and imperial relationships sat easily with the progressive, pro-statist views of many inter-war Unionists, helping to consolidate the consensus within ‘middle opinion’. The thesis focuses on the actions of a trio of West of Scotland industrialists: Lord Weir of Eastwood, Sir James Lithgow and Sir Steven Bilsland. It will be suggested that their advocacy of Scottish solutions for Scottish problems represents a more muscular and far-reaching economic Unionist Nationalism which transcends the narrow vision of Morton’s nineteenth century urban Scotland, but also questions Colin Kidd’s dismissal of early twentieth century unionism as ‘banal’.
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Waddell, Brodie Banner. "Poverty, property and profit in English popular culture, 1660-1720." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3214/.
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This thesis explores popular attitudes towards economic relations in England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It focuses on the economic implications of three of the most important and pervasive themes in the popular culture of this period: religious teachings about God‟s will; analogies based on the „well-ordered household‟; and assertions of communal solidarity. This study thus includes analysis of a range of moralised ideals and beliefs, including Christian stewardship, divine providence, patriarchal power, paternal duty, local community, and collective identity. Although some of these concepts have been discussed in the existing historiography, their impact on the economic culture of the period has largely been neglected or misunderstood. The sources used in this study are primarily printed media created for a very broad audience: broadside ballads, short tracts, chapbooks, pamphlets, sermons, catechisms, etc. These are placed in context by drawing on a variety of less „public‟ sources such as diaries, state papers, magisterial records, and the archives of craft guilds. Together, this diverse collection provides evidence of both moral prescription and social practice. The study demonstrates the vibrancy and diversity of later Stuart „moral economies‟. As a result, it also reveals the inadequacy of many previous historiographical approaches to early modern economic life. Many of these have ignored popular culture in favour of quantifiable metrics or elite ideas, while others have depicted „the moral economy‟ as an ever-receding anachronism. In contrast, this study argues that such beliefs and assumptions continued to serve as the frame through which people viewed food marketing, labour relations, land use, private charity, public poor relief, and many other „worldly‟ concerns. An analysis of later Stuart popular culture can thus contribute significantly to our understanding of economic relations during this period.
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Lyddon, Dave. "Craft unionism and industrial change : a study of the National Union of Vehicle Builders until 1939." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1987. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/67116/.
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This thesis is about how the members of a long-established multi-craft union, originating in the coachmaking trade, coped with the massive changes in the means of transport, culminating in the dominance of mass production motor car firms. Part I explores changes in the nineteenth and early twentieth century with the rise of railways and motor cars. In both, some coachmaking skills were made redundant, while others were very necessary. The rise of the motor industry, far from destroying coachmaking unionism, wrenched it out of a long period of stagnation. Part II focusses on the interwar period, which witnessed major changes in car body production. Brush painting and varnishing was. replaced by cellulose spraying; wooden framed bodies were replaced by all-steel ones; assembly lines came into use, and the division of labour greatly increased, with large numbers of semi-skilled workers employed in the biggest firms. Analysis of the main technical changes, and the changing state of the car industry, shows that, despite massive unemployment among its members, and a membership decline of over one third, in the early 1930s, the RUVB did not suffer "technological unemployment". Although there was a material basis for craft unionism in much of the car body industry in the 1920s, and in the rest of vehicle building during the whole interwar period, the union still tried to organise semi-skilled workers. But when an "Industrial Section" was created in 1931, it was a response to the union's financial crisis caused by unemployment payments, and no serious recruitment of mass production operatives took place. The contrasting experiences in Coventry and Oxford in the 1920s and 1930s are analysed in detail. The study is not a conventional head office-based union history, instead favouring case studies of the organisation of work, technical developments, industrial structure, and local union organisation.
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Freeman, Mark David. "Social investigation in rural England, 1870-1914." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1999. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1130/.
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This thesis analyses the work of a large group of social investigators who were active in rural areas in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It follows on from studies of the investigations of Charles Booth, Seebohm Rowntree, Henry Mayhew and others, and shows how the investigation of rural life proceeded on different lines from the urban social inquiry of the period. It is argued that the political and social conflicts between town and country, and within the rural community itself, shaped the activities of the investigators considered. The model of a conflict between the 'informant' approach (where trustworthy authorities were asked to comment on the condition of the agricultural labourer) and the 'respondent' approach (where the labourer was consulted at first hand) is used to illustrate the complexity of the structure or rural social inquiries of the period. It is shown that the kinds of information which could be obtained from the two approaches differed, and that the same event or condition could be reported on very differently from two conflicting points of view. This argument is taken a study further by an examination of another genre of writers on the agricultural labourer. It is argued that the social commentary, usually by resident investigators, which tended to be cultural rather than economic in character, was as much a part of the project of social investigation as was the large-scale official inquiry or social survey. Drawing on the work of the few historians who have seriously analysed this genre of writers in its urban context, the thesis applies an analysis of this form of investigation in rural areas. The perceived need to communicate with the rural poor on a deeper level was another aspect of the 'respondent' approach to investigation, and is as much a forerunner of modern sociological method as is the classic social survey. The thesis also shows how the representations of rural communities and of agricultural labourers in the texts of the period affected the practice of investigators, and argues that the notion of the countryside as a scene of social peace and a repository of racial hardihood caused them to approach the task of investigation with particular preconceptions which shaped their diagnoses of the problems of rural life.
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Chinn, Carl. "The anatomy of a working-class neighbourhood : West Sparkbrook 1871-1914." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1986. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/239/.
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This thesis explores the premise that during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras there existed a significant and influential division within the working class of England's industrial towns and cities. This division, based largely on economic factors to do with the size and regularity of earnings, manifested itself first in the type and locality of residence, which in turn emphasised and reinforced the division of the working class into an upper section of better-paid usually more skilled and regularly-employed and a lower, poorer section of the low-waged and casually employed. Whilst it is not suggested that this produced "working classes" rather than "a working class", it did, nevertheless, result in two sections among the wage-earning class whose members pursued in many significant ways quite different ways of life. Economic differences allied to residential segregation meant that each section: developed different notions of such concepts as "rough" and "respectable" and did not by any means share beliefs as to what constituted acceptable or "deviant" behaviour. These and other questions are pursued by an examination of the years from 1871 to 1914 in the Birmingham neighbourhood of West Sparkbrook. The chronology has been set to make possible the use of census material and oral evidence, and the neighbourhood was chosen because, although it was in these years mainly an area of middle and upper working class housing, it had within it clearly differentiated pockets of lower working class housing, and so makes significant comparisons possible. After an examination of the growth of West Sparkbrook as a residential district, an analysis has been made of the institutions, habits and behaviour of the people of the district. Documentary, archival and oral evidence has been called on to examine the cultural schism in a number of exemplary areas. Differences in housing, schooling, working and shopping have been considered, and attitudes towards drinking, gambling and fighting. The differing roles and responsibilities within the family of men, women and children have been shown in the different groups, as well as leisure behaviour and the role of religion and of religious and charitable institutions in the lives of the community. From this picture emerges a clearer idea of the limits imposed on behaviour by the notions of "rough" and "respectable", and the extent to which these notions were developed by each group within its specific social, economic and cultural environment.
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Bruton, Roger Neil. "The Shropshire Enlightenment : a regional study of intellectual activity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2015. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5830/.
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The focus of this study is centred upon intellectual activity in the period from 1750 to c1840 in Shropshire, an area that for a time was synonymous with change and innovation. It examines the importance of personal development and the influence of intellectual communities and networks in the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. It adds to understanding of how individuals and communities reflected Enlightenment aspirations or carried the mantle of ‘improvement’ and thereby contributes to the debate on the establishment of regional Enlightenment. The acquisition of philosophical knowledge merged into the cultural ethos of the period and its utilitarian characteristics were to influence the onset of Industrial Revolution but Shropshire was essentially a rural location. The thesis examines how those progressive tendencies manifested themselves in that local setting. The study therefore explores contemporary knowledge acquisition and dissemination, both within and beyond the industrial environment for which the county has become historically known. Comparisons are made with similar processes in other localities and conclusions drawn on local specificity in the context of economic and agricultural improvement and the enhancement of infrastructure. It acknowledges in the process, the cultural change effected in the lives of many individuals across the social spectrum.
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Sullivan, Janet Christine. "Paying the price for industrialisation : the experience of a Black Country town, Oldbury, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2014. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5513/.
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This thesis examines the development and effects of industrialisation on the landscape and people of Oldbury, a nineteenth-century Black Country town. During the Industrial Revolution, the Black Country made a significant contribution to the British economy through its extractive, metal-working and chemical industries. Oldbury has received virtually no attention from historians, yet its experience of industrialisation was distinctive since it industrialised rapidly during a thirty-year period, compared to the much longer time span of the region’s other towns. The thesis provides an in-depth study of the economic and social experiences of a Black Country town before 1900. In particular, it enables investigation of the experience of public health, Nonconformity, local élites and other themes which have received limited attention, such as pollution and occupational illnesses. This micro-history is based on extensive archival research in local and national repositories. It applies various methodologies to examine this information, including the creation of databases, GIS analysis of mapping and demographics, and prosopography. The research draws upon a number of disciplinary approaches for the study of archaeology, geology, geography and environmental studies, public health, religion, sociology and mental health.
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Hasegawa, Junichi. "The replanning of the blitzed city centre in Britain : a comparative study of Bristol, Coventry and Southampton, 1941-1950." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1989. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2348/.
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Before the outbreak of the Second World War Britain had suffered the consequences of uncontrolled industrial development - too highly populated built-up areas and indiscriminate sprawl of houses in the suburbs of industrial cities. Those associated with town planning called for comprehensive national planning. The state of city centres was the microcosm of the lack of such planning - insufficiency caused by traffic congestion and chaotic development of buildings of all kinds, and the absence of social amenities such as civic centres and public open spaces. But the local authorities could do very little, because, for one thing, there was no proper legislation dealing with such highly densely developed areas. The German air raids on several industrial cities in 1940 were thought to have provided a golden opportunity for the local authorities to set to the task of replanning city centres. The Government promised to make up the necessary legislation, and encouraged the blitzed local authorities to plan boldly and comprehensively. City centre replanning had become a symbol of post-war reconstruction as a whole. However, the blitzed authorities soon had to face a wave of pressure to subdue boldness in their city centre plans. This thesis, by exploring the three case studies of Bristol, Coventry, and Southampton, illustrates the development of city centre replanning in the 1940s, and explains why it failed to live up to some of the expectations of its supporters.
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Greenhalgh, Matthew. "Gentlemen landowners and the middle classes of Bromley : the transfer of power and wealth, 1840-1914." Thesis, University of Greenwich, 1995. http://gala.gre.ac.uk/6377/.
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The central driving force behind this thesis was to study and analyse the balance of power, influence and wealth held by the landed gentry and the middle classes during the period 1840 to 1914. This was accomplished by focusing on thetown of Bromley, Kent, which historians and modern commentators alike havechampioned as the archetypal middle-class suburb. The thesis begins with an in-depth examination of the origins, ideals and actions of the small group of individuals who, in 1840, owned between them the majority of land in the town. Findings about the local gentry challenge existing theories about landowners' alleged antipathy towards commercial interests and show that landowners were not averse to exploiting prevailing economic conditions to their own financial gain. Gradually the local gentry's 'social' power and influence was surrendered to the middle classes which were gaining in wealth and self-confidence. Even though the socio-economic composition of the local middle class was increasingly diverse, there existed no conspicuous divergence in their aspirations or intentions. Indeed, unity of purpose intensified their impact upon the social and economic life of the community, as well as upon prevailing ideals. An ever-growing influx of commuters residing in the town, notably affluent financiers, merchants and professionals working in the City of London, occasionally challenged this unity over demands for improvements in facilities for urban - or suburban - living. However, in the long run these wealthy commuters were adopted as the 'new' elite of local society, helping to promote deferential and paternalistic relationships in a class that was drawn together within a complex web of social, cultural and economic ties. Whilst social harmony was secured by such ties, an obsession with image and perceived status helped preserve social ranks and social distinctions, of which geographical segregation became the most overt illustration. Such were the middle classes' fears of social degradation that they raised a united defence against the emergence of radicalism and socialism. This helped Bromley to emerge, or to be seen to emerge, as the most middle-class of English suburbs, even though this misjudges its more complex Victorian and Edwardian past.
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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.
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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.
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Bowles, Carol De Witte. "Women of the Tudor court, 1501-1568." PDXScholar, 1989. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3874.
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Writing the history of Tudor women is a difficult task. "Women's lives from the 16th century can rarely be constructed except when these women have had influential connections with notable men.This is no less true for the court women of Tudor England than for other women of the time.
The purpose of this thesis is to discuss some of the more memorable court women of Tudor England who served the queens of Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I, 2 and to determine what impact, if any, they had on their contemporary times and to evaluate their roles in Tudor history.
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Ho, Karl Ka-yiu. "The Subjective Economy and Political Support: The Case of the British Labour Party." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1992. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500261/.
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During the past two decades, extensive research efforts have focused on the conventional wisdom that the economy has a direct influence on a party's destiny. This hypothesis rests on the implicit assumption that the linkages between macroeconomic variables such as inflation and unemployment and party support are direct and unmediated. As the present study indicates, however, objective economic measures only serve as a proxy for the invisible force that drives voters' party support. Once the relevant variables, namely, the perceptual factors of the electorate, are controlled for, variables that describe the state of the objective economy fail to exert their "magic" on political behavior.
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Chung, Wing-yu, and 鍾詠儒. "British women writers and the city in the early twentieth century." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2003. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B2702409X.
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Gottwald, Carl H. "The Anglo-American Council on Productivity: 1948-1952 British Productivity and the Marshall Plan." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1999. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279256/.
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The United Kingdom's postwar economic recovery and the usefulness of Marshall Plan aid depended heavily on a rapid increase in exports by the country's manufacturing industries. American aid administrators, however, shocked to discover the British industry's inability to respond to the country's urgent need, insisted on aggressive action to improve productivity. In partial response, a joint venture, called the Anglo-American Council on Productivity (AACP), arranged for sixty-six teams involving nearly one thousand people to visit U.S. factories and bring back productivity improvement ideas. Analyses of team recommendations, and a brief review of the country's industrial history, offer compelling insights into the problems of relative industrial decline. This dissertation attempts to assess the reasons for British industry's inability to respond to the country's economic emergency or to maintain its competitive position faced with the challenge of newer industrializing countries.
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Motono, Eiichi. "Chinese-British commercial conflicts in Shanghai and the collapse of the merchant-control system in late Qing China, 1860-1906." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:27ae2da8-a15b-40e1-a0b2-bc33fc8ecbaa.
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During the 1860s, Chinese merchants reestablished their commercial organizations which are recorded as Guilds (hanghui) in the sources compiled under the guidance of the Qing local government officials. From the decade until the end of the 1880s, English sources emphasized the solidarity of the commercial organizations of Chinese merchants and their superiority to the British mercantile community in the commercial conflicts in which they were engaged. However, from the 1890s, English sources ceased to complain the strength of the commercial organizations of Chinese merchants, and, at the same time, Chinese sources emphasized the existence of a crisis in which Chinese merchants were losing their solidarity. Moreover, the Qing local government officials endeavoured to maintain their control over the commercial organizations of Chinese merchants, an attempt which led to the birth of Chinese chambers of commerce in the early twentieth century. Former studies, which dealt with the superiority of the Chinese merchants' organizations to the British mercantile firms in the 1860s and the 1870s, or the birth of the Chinese bourgeoisie and the activities of their commercial organizations in the early twentieth century, have not been able to reveal what happened in the commercial organizations of the Chinese merchants during the late nineteenth century. The solidarity of the Chinese merchant organizations was maintained by the rule that no one could claim the privilege of doing business without paying the Lijin tax imposed upon it, and the collapse of their solidarity began with when some Chinese compradors and merchants found it possible to do their business without keeping this rule by means of cooperating British mercantile firms, who enjoyed key privi- leges under the Treaties as regards non-payment of the Lijin tax and investment on the basis of limited liability. By intensively analyzing three commercial conflicts between prominent Chinese merchant organizations and British mercantile firms that took place in Shanghai between the end of the 1870s and the end of the 1880s, this study reveals how, and under what conditions some Chinese compradors and merchants could do their business without observing the afore-mentioned rule governing the Chinese merchants' organizations, what happened when British mercantile people became aware what their compradors or cooperative Chinese merchants had doing behind their back, and how these developments contributed to the end of the old-style merchant class, and the beginning of a bourgeoisie. By bringing these facts to the surface for analysis, this study shows a little known aspect of the Chinese society and tries on the basis to re-evaluate an aspect of concept of "China's response to the Western impact."
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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.
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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.
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Kumagai, Yukihisa. "The lobbying activities of provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests against the renewal of the East India Company’s charter, 1812-1813 and 1829-1833." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2008. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/367/.
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The aim of this thesis is to reassess Cain and Hopkins’ gentlemanly capitalist explanation of British imperialism in Asia during the first half of the nineteenth century through examining the lobbying activities of provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests against the renewal of the East India Company’s charter during the periods 1812-1813 and 1829-1833. This thesis particularly has focused on Glasgow’s lobbying activities although Liverpool and Manchester’s cases have also been examined. In Cain and Hopkins’ model, the position of provincial manufacturing interests was outside from the gentlemanly capitalists’ circle consisting of non-industrial capitalists based in London and South-east England, such as the landed aristocracy, the merchants and bankers of the City and professions. Economically, there was a split between these gentlemanly capitalists and the provincial manufacturing interests, and politically, the provincial interests could exercise minor influence on the national politics. This thesis has contributed to three issues related to Cain and Hopkins’ gentlemanly capitalist thesis. The firs issue is the degree of influence of provincial commercial and manufacturing interests on the formation of Britain’s imperial policy. The second issue is the relationship between the gentlemanly capitalists in London and the provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests. The third issue is the Scots contribution to the formation of the British Empire, to which they failed to give their attention. Regarding the first issue, this thesis has demonstrated that the provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests organised effective lobbying activities for the opening of the East India and China trades and succeeded in exerting undeniable influence over the state’s decisions in both the first and second campaigns through well-organised lobbying strategies, powerful lobbing means, and their access to the centre of the national politics through their influential parliamentary supporters. In this thesis, the provincial lobbyists’ economic interests and political backgrounds have closely been examined. Although the provincial lobbyists’ economic and political interests were varied and they split up over some economic and political issues, these did not affect their unity in their challenge against the London merchants’ dominance in the East India trade. This contrasts with Cain and Hopkins’ argument on the gentlemanly capitalists’ superior influence on the national politics. In terms of the second issue, this thesis has shown that there is no evidence for the collaboration between the provincial interests and the London merchants during the 1812-1813 campaign. Nevertheless, as the connection between the provincial manufacturing interests and the London agency houses grew after the opening of the India trade, in the 1829-1833 campaign, the provincial lobbyists and some of the London mercantile interests showed their collaboration. Therefore, this thesis supports the application of Webster’s more complex model than Cain and Hopkins’ original model to British imperialism in Asia during this period. Finally, in respect of the Scots contribution to the formation of British Empire, during these two national campaigns for the opening of the East India trade, the Glasgow lobbyists were very active and the GEIA played a significant role in their lobbying activities.
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Monastiriotis, Vassilis. "Labour market flexibility and regional economic performance in the UK, 1979-1998." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2002. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/834/.
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Over the last two decades labour market flexibility has gained recognition as an important factor for good economic performance. Over the same period, the UK has followed a significant labour market deregulation programme, achieving probably the most flexible labour market in Europe. The main purpose of this study is to offer a concrete analysis of labour market flexibility and measure the impact that changes in flexibility in the UK have had on its regional economic performance. The thesis starts with a review of the forces that have created the conditions for enhanced labour market flexibility. This includes a discussion of the elements of flexibility, identifying its different forms, types, sources and targets. Through a systematic literature review the relationship between labour market flexibility and economic performance is examined. Some original international empirical evidence is also offered, based on a panel of data from the OECD. I then proceed to develop a technical economic model, examining the effects of labour standards deregulation on economic outcomes and inequalities in economic opportunities. This is followed by a theoretical discussion of regional dynamics in relation to labour market flexibility, where issues of spatial dependence are considered. In the main body of the empirical analysis, a large number of flexibility measures are developed and their evolution over time and across space is thoroughly discussed. Then, the economic effects of labour market flexibility are formally examined. The conclusion of this empirical analysis is that, on balance, labour market flexibility seems to have improved economic performance in the UK regions, although efficiency gains have coincided with larger inequalities in labour compensation and economic opportunities. The various elements of flexibility, however, are found to have variable, often opposing effects, suggesting that the issue of flexibility and improved economic performance is not purely quantitative, but mostly related to the specific combination of labour market arrangements which can lead to better or worse social and economic outcomes. It follows that this issue cannot be studied in isolation from its socio-economic environment, as the economic benefits of flexibility are not universal but rather place- and context-specific.
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Hartridge, Stephen Paul. "Thatcherism and the restoration of governability." Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/80088.
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Mrs Thatcher's third electoral victory in the summer of 1987 appeared to confirm and consolidate both the success and the popularity of the political and economic experiment attempted during her eight years in office. Thatcherism is perhaps most remarkable for guiding Britain out of the dark decades of the 1960's and 1970's when relative economic decline was the chief cause of a governmental and institutional paralysis that inevitably led to policy failures, "u-turns'', and defeats at the hands of the trade union movement. At a time when governmental effectiveness had been diluted, the hold of public expectations, symbolic of "consensus" or "Butskellite'' politics, showed no sign of loosening; despite the fact that welfare statism retained it's grip over the British public, years of economic decline and governmental ineffectiveness (symbolised by Heath's defeat by the miners and the "winter of discontent" under Callaghan), meant that fiscally, government commitments, both old and new, were outreaching their grasp and ability to deliver. It was speculated by many of the period's more prolific writers that public recognition of successive governments' inability to manage the demands of a modern economy was leading to severe, if immeasurable, credibility and legitimation problems.
To what extent have the Thatcher policies solved these seemingly intractable problems? Has Thatcherism found a solution to the demands of social democratic Britain? What is the real extent of Britain's economic recovery? Is there a "new consensus" that underpins the Thatcher challenge to the "mal Anglais''? These questions will be central to this paper's analysis of the extent of the restoration of British governability in the Thatcher years.Master of Arts
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St, John Ian. "A study of the problem of work effort in British industry, 1850 to 1920." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:72e07126-716e-47d1-9d97-04725e128098.
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The thesis investigates the factors determining the effort put forth by industrial workers in Britain during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth. Why was so much energy and of such kinds put into work, and neither more nor less? What was the contribution of culture and institutions? And in which ways, if any, did the conduct of labour change over time? Labour effort contributes significantly to productivity differentials, between factories and across nations, and its study thus sheds light on that slackening of Britain's economic performance which historians have detected in the late Victorian period. Yet it is, additionally, a subject of interest in its own right. Work was the preponderating element in a man's daily experience, and much of the wide range of factory life found reflection in the matter of how hard he laboured and in what way. Indeed it is the contention of this thesis that an explanation of the level and forms of effort in the late nineteenth century must make reference to the workshop environment and its associated customs and social relationships. These arguments are illustrated by detailed studies of the shoe and flint-glass trades. Despite obvious contrasts between these industries, important similarities are found to exist in the issues surrounding labour effort. In both industries operatives limited output; shoe and glass employers alike contributed to the failure to fully realise the productive potential of their establishments; the social equilibrium of both industries was subject to mounting competition from overseas - a challenge compounded in the shoe trade by rapid technical change; and in each case these disruptive tendencies eventuated in industrial confrontations which, however apparently successful for employers, left the fundamental characteristics of industrial organisation unchanged. These themes were common, not merely to glass and shoe manufacture, but to a range of major industries. The culture of output limitation was, we conclude, widespread in industry in this period, and emerged from similar reasons out of similar contexts.
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Adams, Jane M. "The mixed economy for medical services in Herefordshire c. 1770 - c. 1850." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2003. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2640/.
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This study considers the mixed economy for medical services in Herefordshire between 1770 and 1850. Medical services were an integral part of wider systems of welfare and were provided within a mixed economy that included private practice, state provision, philanthropic activities and mutual societies. Significant resources were spent within the sector and influence over their deployment was of direct interest to parishes, the municipal council, magistrates, philanthropists and individual members of the elite. Four types of medical services are reviewed. These are the provision of personal care by medical practitioners in the private, public and charitable sectors, the establishment of Hereford General Infirmary, changes in institutional services for the insane and developments in public health. Two underlying themes are discussed throughout the thesis. The first of these is the complexity of the mixed economy for medical services. Important changes over the period are identified and the interrelationships between the various sectors investigated. The dominance of public, private or charitable provision shifted in the period as a result of both national and local factors. The second theme explored is the interplay between politics and the systems and institutions providing medical services. The importance of political considerations in shaping local policy towards medical services is demonstrated through detailed case studies. These include examining the link between the launch of the subscription appeal for Hereford Infirmary and the parliamentary election campaign in 1774, approaches taken towards the management of the cholera epidemic of 1832 and the campaign to establish a public lunatic asylum in the late 1830s.
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Clucas, Marie. "Researching Irish health inequalities in England : a case study of first and second generation Irish men and women in Coventry." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2223/.
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Background. Despite consistent evidence that the Irish people living in Britain face a significant health disadvantage, when compared to white British people on a range of health indicators, the reasons and underlying generative mechanisms, need further uncovering. Design and Objectives. This research uses a mixed strategy design compatible with a critical realist perspective. The extensive/quantitative research component aims to evaluate the demi-regularity that Irish people in England have poorer health than the British general population. It engages in a secondary analysis of data from the Census 2001 Individual Licensed SARs, using self-reported Irish ethnicity and self-reported general health. The intensive/qualitative research component explores the generative mechanisms shaping Irish health experiences and inequalities in England, and Coventry in particular, including the contribution of, and interaction between, generative mechanisms of structural and identity/cultural aspects of ethnicity. It carries out an in-depth primary analysis of thirty-two semi-structured interview accounts from two generations of Irish men and women in Coventry, using a framework analytical approach. This is elaborated within a model of ethnicity as structure and identity developed in accordance with a critical realist and sociohistorical perspective. The research is realized through a collaborative community based participatory approach. Results and Conclusions. The extensive findings provide further evidence for an Irish health disadvantage in England, with some differences by country of birth, and provide clues to generative mechanisms for the demi-regularity found. The intensive findings concur with the extensive analysis and show that generative mechanisms from structural and identity dimensions of ethnicity 1) contribute to the health inequalities and/or experiences of first and second generation Irish people in England, 2) interact in complex ways, 3) are impacted by the socio-political context, i.e., British colonialism and a world capitalist economy, and 4) are shaped by interweaving forces of structure and agency.
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MacKenzie, Niall Gordon. "Chucking buns across the fence? : governmental planning and regeneration projects in the Scottish Highland economy, 1945-82." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2008. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/125/.
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This thesis investigates the creation, operation and impact of four industrial developments in the Highlands of Scotland in Corpach, Aviemore, Dounreay and Invergordon in the period 1945 to 1982. The thesis is structured as follows: the introduction details the development of economic policy towards the Highlands and Scotland more generally, encompassing a literature survey to provide the necessary background and context of the developments, followed by individual case study analysis of the four developments, followed by a conclusion that assesses the overall themes present in the preceding case studies and introduction. Within the conclusion is a discussion of the regional policy aspect of the four developments, the effect the developments had on the areas in which they were located in terms of population and unemployment change and the political economy and politics of Highland development. The argument developed in the thesis is that the motivations behind the four industrial projects detailed in the case studies were more complex than the publicly and privately stated justification for creating and establishing the developments that they would act as growth centres and attract further industries to the areas in which they were located. The thesis posits that developments in the Highlands only took place as a consequence of Scottish Office actions ‘winning’ large industrial projects for the area and only when Scottish Office policy aims converged with UK national economic and political interests. Consequently, short-term political goals usurped effective long-term economic development, resulting in a lack of infrastructural development that severely hindered the stated aims and justification of each development acting as a growth centre. Further, the argument is made that as a result of these short-term political goals, a policy of grand gestures of large-scale industrial developments that were inappropriate for the areas in which they were located was pursued, resulting in the eventual closure of all but the Aviemore complex. In short, the thesis is about the implementation failure of large-scale industry in the Highlands, post-1945.
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Velkar, Aashish. "Markets, standards and transactions : measurements in nineteenth-century British economy." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2008. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/109/.
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This thesis is concerned with measurements used in economic activity and investigates how historical markets managed transactional problems due to unreliable measurements. Existing literature has generally associated the problems of measurements in historical markets with the lack of uniformity in weights and measures. This thesis shows that metrological standardization was not sufficient to ensure reliability of measurements. Markets developed mensuration practices that enabled markets to address specific transactional issues in micro-contexts. This involved, in addition to the use of standardized metrology, improved governance of transactions, third party monitoring and guaranteeing, and other institutional solutions. Historical institutional arrangements were altered or replaced as a result of changing or standardizing mensuration practices. The thesis also makes a conceptual contribution in terms of understanding the process of standardization. It shows how, while standards can be inflexible and rationalized (i.e. limited in number), standardized practices can incorporate a number of such standards and be flexible in terms which standard to be used in a given context. Analytically, standardized practices are institutional objects that are determined endogenously and are formed in 'packages' that create interlinks between standards, other artefacts, rules and people. These arguments are developed by studying three detailed cases of mensuration practices in the British economy during the nineteenth-century. The case of the London Coal Trade examines how altered mensuration practices gave buyers greater assurance that the amount of coal they received was actually the amount they purchased. The case of the wire industry illustrates the struggles to define a uniform set of wire sizes that could overcome the disputes arising from incompatible and multiple ways of measuring wire sizes. The case of the wheat markets illustrates the complexity involved in developing standards of measurements such that quality could be reliably measured ex-ante. Through these case studies, the thesis shows how markets developed different mensuration practices to manage measurements in a given context.
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Andrews, Brian Peter Alford. "Exchange rate appreciation, competitiveness and export performance : the UK experience in the inter-war period." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1987. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:69b9bcfe-a2fa-4f02-8d49-2f847fa6dc32.
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This thesis principally studies the determination of UK export performance between the wars. Several improvements to the measurement of sterling's nominal and real effective exchange rate in the period are implemented, and the path of the exchange rate is related to UK and foreign exchange rate policies. The nature of competitiveness and the demand and supply mechanisms by which it may influence exports are discussed. In the light of this, and the commodity and geographical breakdown of UK exports, we suggest alternative measures of competitiveness which may appropriately be tested in econometric work. Aggregate UK export volume and price equations for the inter- war period are then estimated. Competitiveness, which is in turn influenced by the exchange rate, and the economic position of primary producing countries, are found to have had significant effects on UK export performance. Similarly specified equations are estimated for UK exports in eight industrial sectors. Distinctive characteristics of sectors may lead to substantial divergences between sectoral and aggregate behaviour. This is confirmed in further work on UK coal exports. Nevertheless, measures of the price of UK exports relative to the price of exports of other industrial countries generally give explanations of UK export performance which are superior to other competitiveness measures. A substantial statistical appendix containing data on, inter alia, UK and foreign exchange rates, trade volumes and values (with geographcial and commodity breakdown), labour costs and prices, together with the sources and methods used in their construction, is provided both for historical interest and to facilitate replication of results and further research.
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Kanwar, Ranvir Singh. "States, firms, and oil : British policy, 1939-54." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2000. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/55809/.
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New evidence from the records of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now British Petroleum) and Shell for the period, 1939-45 supplements accounts of British oil relations based on state archives. This historical account demonstrates the continuity between the interwar industry cartel and the Allied wartime collaboration orchestrated through industry committees. The companies made use of their quasi-official position to manage crisis of prewar arrangements aggravated by the war which presaged the rapid expansion of postwar Middle East production. The companies then shaped the Anglo-American Oil Agreements of 1944 and 1945, establishing a basis for remaking their position in the Middle East, expanding the web of interfirm relations. The nationalisation of Anglo- Iranian in 1951 threatened the web and the companies were able to embargo nationalised Iranian oil and thus bankrupt the state. This society of oil majors was constituted by shared understandings and interests cultivated by the companies. Structures of private governance may be quite significant factors for states allied to them. The United Kingdom was more closely tied into the system of private governance that prevailed in international oil in the middle decades of the century than was the United States and consequently was able to call on more resources to resist United States initiatives during this period. British influence persisted in the oil issue-area, in spite of greater United States resources overall, because of this close working relationship between state and companies. Close examination of the relationship reveals the extent of penetration by the companies into both the decision-malting and implementation of foreign relations. The `national' interest was thus articulated through an interplay of Governmental and corporate agendas, and this supports a general argument that `national' power is not exercised solely by the state, but by the state in cooperation with other powerful social institutions. Non-state actors and their archives may enrich the study of foreign relations.
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Banks-Conney, Diana Elisabeth. "Political culture and the labour movement : a comparison between Poplar and West Ham, 1889-1914." Thesis, University of Greenwich, 2005. http://gala.gre.ac.uk/5797/.
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This thesis compares two areas of East London, Poplar and West Ham,that ultimately became strongholds of the Labour Party. The thesis attemptsto answer the crucial question of why, prior to 1914, it seemed as if Labour had succeeded in South West Ham but had failed to achieve similar representation in Poplar. This thesis considers that although contemporaries had identified similar social and economic problems in both Poplar and West Ham in the early twentieth century, more detailed analysis reveals differences as well as similarities in the underlying economic and social structure, which had implications for political outcomes. The difference in attitude of local trade unionists and councillors was crucial as was the behaviour of the political leadership. The reason for this, it will be shown, lay in the characters of the individuals who led their respective activists, as well as in the social and economic structure of the two boroughs. Using the theoretical model of social movements and political parties it is hoped that an understanding may be reached as to why socialist politics in these two boroughs, apparently so similar, achieved different outcomes in the years prior to 1914. The initial chapters outline the social and economic conditions in the boroughs and the national attitudes to their problems. Chapters Three and Four consider the left wing activists and their leaders, exploring their differing attitudes to the social and economic problems and their different styles ofpolitical activity. Chapter Five discusses the difficulties experienced by activists in achieving local and national representation so as to effect social and political change. Chapters Six, Seven and Eight, by considering the issue of unemployment, the campaign for women' s suffrage and the history of the Great Unrest, exemplify the main argument of this thesis. Thus by assessing economic factors, employment patterns and trade unionism, problems with the franchise and elector registration, the quality of local party organisation and the different attitudes and aspirations of the local activists, this thesis will test the hypothesis that the reason for the difference in political fortunes in these two boroughs was that left wing activity in Poplar was more characteristic of a social movement and that of West Ham was more representative of a political party.
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Wong, Anny Hun Kuen. "Optimists and pessimists : a debate over the economic future of Hong Kong." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 1992. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/26435.
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Hong Kong -- the "Pearl of Orient" -- formerly was part of China, now being a territory of Britain, exhibits the advantages of a city-state earned from both countries. its excellent domestic infrastructure and political legal framework, Hong Kong has developed from an entrepot city into an economic and financial center in the Asian-Pacific area. It has represented a territorial separateness from China for one and a half centuries that enfolds a society united primarily by economic interests under the British colonial rule.
The economic and political future of the last British crowned colony, Hong Kong, before and after the reversion to the Chinese rule on 1 July, 1997 has attracted the world's attention. The political future of Hong Kong and future government framework have already been outlined according to the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.
The economic future of Hong Kong, on the other hand, has to be examined through its multi-facet orientation based upon its historical development, the pluralistic nature of the society, the domestic and international economic climate, and the tripodal political atmosphere circumscribed by the British Government, the Chinese Government and the local people. Either one of these factors may weigh more on one account or another, but as a whole, all will contribute to the future changes in the economy.
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Foggo, Anthony. "The radical experiment in Liverpool and its influence on the reform movement in the early Victorian period." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2015. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/2012339/.
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This thesis investigates the development of radical politics in Liverpool in the first half of the nineteenth century and argues that distinctive events and trends in Liverpool exercised an important influence on the activities of the Reform Movement nationally between 1848 and 1854. It addresses two important but largely neglected areas of historiography: first, the political history of Liverpool in the years between the abolition of the slave trade and the mass influx of Irish refugees in mid-century, during which time the town rose to commercial pre-eminence; secondly, the influence of major provincial centres such as Liverpool on politics at the national level. The origins of Liverpool’s reformist Town Council of 1835-1841 are traced and show a continuity of thought and personalities over several decades against a backdrop of Tory paternalism and institutionalised corruption. The new reformist administration is seen as laying the foundations of a modern society through good governance, financial economy, civil liberty and innovation. On the Corn Laws issue, Liverpool’s reformers were reluctant to follow Manchester’s lead, preferring to pursue free trade on a broad front. This study follows their progress and shows how, ultimately, their thinking on financial reform influenced Cobden’s “National Budget” and remained an ever-present stimulus for several decades. The most prominent of Liverpool’s radical reformers was Sir Joshua Walmsley, whose achievements in both municipal and national politics have received much less attention from historians than they have merited. This study details the influences and experiences in his early career and then traces how, through political dexterity, he pushed parliamentary reform to the forefront of the national political agenda and established the National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association in 1849. The influence exerted by his Liverpool background on both his political development and style of campaigning may be seen throughout his parliamentary career.
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Searles, Patrick James. "The measurement of economic and labour market conditions in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods and the use of data from the co-operative movement of Great Britain." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2004. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2896/.
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The overall aim of the thesis is to extract from a hitherto under-used data set a wide range of statistics that enable the calculation of annual average earnings for a geographically and occupationally diverse group of workers. The period covered is 1896 to 1913 and essentially attempts to draw economic and welfare inferences from spatial and time series analysis by occupational sector and between geographical location. The extent of the data may be exemplified by noting that the number of workers represented is 52,977 in 1896 and 178,674 in 1913. The thesis is divided into three sections as follows: 1. The introductory part discusses in general terms the measurement of economic and labour market conditions in the period, the relative importance of this issue, and difficulties that exist due to lack of representative data. The second part attempts to justify the use of data for annual average earnings of co-operative society workers as giving some representation of market wages. This is covered by two chapters, one qualitative and one quantative 2. The first part of this section draws upon statistics from productive societies in the Movement. The data is arranged by sector and comparisons are made with existing work by Bowley, Wood and Feinstein. Additional data is drawn from the Labour Gazette in the period and the results seem to suggest that, when actual earnings rather than wage rates are used, annual and periodic levels of income show greater variance. The possibility that these variances may be an indication of underlying economic and labour market conditions is discussed in detail. The second part of this section uses data from the largest section of the Movement, the distributive side. A database (Access) has been created and statistics on annual average earnings entered for all 1,167 distributive societies in 1906 (62,465 workers). A total of 890 have been mapped onto an outline of Great Britain. This data is also presented at metropolitan and regional levels of analysis for comparative purposes. 3. The final part of the thesis attempts to draw upon the preceding chapters to suggest that variance in annual average earnings may contribute to the debate concerning conditions within Britain for the period. Relative distress within the diverse economy that existed in the period has been an area of quite considerable discussion and authors have used a number of proxy measures - for example poor law returns, data for the recovery of small debts, marriage rates and trade union unemployment returns - to measure these variations. This section will investigate the possibility that one or more of these proxies may be indicative of relative conditions (by comparison with annual average wages) when tested at local levels.
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Shimizu, Shu. "The battle of economic ideas : a critical analysis of financial crisis management discourse in the UK, 2007-8." Thesis, University of Essex, 2016. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/16259/.
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This thesis contributes to our understanding of the financial crisis as it played itself out in the UK. The onset of the crisis provoked multiple diagnoses and interpretations of the crisis. Pre-dominant economic understandings of the crisis minimised its significance, suggesting that the natural operation of market mechanisms would enable the economic system to self-correct spontaneously and rapidly. As the economic situation worsened, however, other interpretations gained ground. From this perspective, the crisis was an event that exposed the limits of the highly financialised status of our economy, presenting policy makers with the opportunity to roll back the financialisation. The eventual non-realisation of this financial ‘roll-back’ is the starting point of many studies, and my thesis can be said to contribute to this literature in a modest way. Its main focus is the battle of economic ideas in elite policy-making circles in the UK. What is often missing from critical narratives of the crisis period is a detailed account of the dynamic interplay of competing interpretations of the crisis at crucial conjunctural moments by key agencies and figures animating the crisis drama in the UK context. These battles are ‘battles of ideas’ in the sense that they refer to competing characterisations of the unfolding events, as well as competing policy and regulatory proposals designed to manage the crisis, rooted in competing economic doctrines, espoused by different actors occupying hegemonic positions of the UK elite finance and media establishment. Although these battles were often fought with great intensity and urgency, there was an internal complexity to the dynamic of these battles that often gets glossed over in accounts of this period. I suggest that ‘reactivating’ this period in detail and with nuance is helpful in showing not only the manner in which ‘neoliberal finance’ has managed to survive the crisis largely intact despite the general expectation of its end but also in pointing to the challenges faced by those who wish its end. Three key conjunctural moments are chosen as the focus of my empirical analysis: the Great Crunch in the Summer of 2007, the Run on the Rock in the Autumn of 2007, and the Lehman Shock in the Autumn of 2008. I articulate a novel theoretical approach and research strategy, drawing on poststructuralist discourse theories. I deploy this approach in a close and systematic analysis of UK elite narratives on economic management, my corpus comprising the discourse produced by official political and economic institutions and agents, including professional economists, as well as narratives found in the broadsheet press more generally. Qualitative interpretative techniques are used to probe the justifications informing a range of bailout and regulatory policy proposals, in order to characterize in a unique and original manner the discursive battles at each one of the conjunctures. My empirical investigation reveals how the battle of economic ideas played itself out politically and ideologically in such a way as to leave neoliberal finance largely unperturbed. While anti-interventionist and interventionist proposals were frequently thematised and debated, these exchanges did not end up challenging the neoliberal finance character of our economy. Moreover, while my findings reveal a clear shift of emphasis in the centre of gravity of elite policy debates when moving from the Great Crunch to the Rock Run (the focus shifting from bailouts to regulation), the legal reforms announced following the Lehman Shock were understood to be largely temporary measures designed to calm and stabilise the markets rather than challenge neoliberal finance. More radical proposals were not taken seriously in the mainstream policy making community, and I argue that this is in part due to the hegemonic sway of neoliberal finance within this context. In order to contribute to the broader question of why neoliberal finance survived the crisis, it is essential to have a clear picture of how the detail and dynamics of the battle of ideas in the early period of the crisis unfolded, including a clear picture of the main actors, the discursive coalitions within which they operated, and the economic doctrines they appealed to when debating the scale of the crisis and the state management of the crisis. It is at this level that my thesis contributes to an overall account of the ‘non-death’ of neoliberal finance.