School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemThe new politics of old ideas: A comparative study of welfare state reform in Sweden and the United States( 2017)This study seeks to explain why governments engage in welfare state reform, despite apparent risks, and why they sometimes do so contrary to policy regime type. In so doing, it advances our understanding of the role played by ideas in welfare reform. The study argues that persistent policy problems, described as functional pressure, provide opportunities for ideationally motivated leaders to engage in reform. This pressure allows for the return of previously dormant, non- viable or unsuccessful ideas as alternatives to the status quo. Drawing upon literature on institutions, policy change and decision theory, a distinctive account of reform is developed and then tested through the close analysis of four case studies, from two distinctive welfare systems: Sweden and the United States. In health care, it compares the development of the US Affordable Care Act (popularly known as “Obamacare”), with Sweden’s 2009 vårdval (patient choice) reform in primary care. For pensions, the cases are Sweden’s replacement of its national pension scheme, completed in 1998 and the similar, but failed effort to partly privatise Social Security, led by President Bush in 2005. Ideas are found to play important roles in delegitimising the status quo and providing persuasive links between problem and solution, especially under conditions of uncertainty. However, the causal effects of ideas are mediated by material and perceived institutional and policy constraints. These constraints necessitate bricolage, the piecing together and reframing of existing solutions to fit the political and policy circumstances, as well as learning from previous failures. The analysis of the case studies suggests that in the long-term, innovation through bricolage may spur unexpected bouts of reform. The study therefore challenges the dominant view of the welfare state as highly change resistant. It appears that policy problems will continue to provide opportunities for reform-minded actors to implement long-held ideas, especially if they are able to engage successfully in strategic learning. Although developed welfare states are unlikely to move radically away from established regime types in one fell swoop, this study makes clear that there is significant room for continued evolution and hybridisation, even in “exceptional” welfare states.
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ItemThe militarization of humanitarian assistance : an emerging crisis( 2005)Military forces are ramping up their involvement in 'humanitarian' action and in doing so are creating operational and ethical problems for humanitarian organisations and professionals who operate in an otherwise politically neutral environment. Using the current Afghanistan conflict (2001-2005) as a case study, the research focuses on the evolving nature of civil-military relations in peace-building operations, and how these relations became changed and altered after the Bush administration's newly declared war on terror. The study begins by seeking an understanding of how and why the military expanded their war effort to include the direct financing of "humanitarian" interventions. The result points to the need to better understand the military's current methods and ethos to `win the peace' and win the hearts and minds of the people. In turn, the study leads to the identification of a new military paradigm that is making its way into military doctrine. This expanded doctrine is leading to the possible amalgamation of government departments that will enable the military to lead nation-building missions around the world. It will also support the simultaneous execution of combat operations (destructive phase) with their nation-building operations (constructive phase). In Afghanistan, the US military's new multi-pronged strategy was manifested through the resurrection of a similar strategy used in Vietnam. Now called Provincial Reconstruction Teams, the military is using this tool to undertake armed `nation-building' activities. By choosing to operate in the arena normally occupied by NGOs and UN relief and development agencies, the military is grossly disturbing the neutral, non-partisan character of their work by, among other things, blurring the lines that distinguish civilian efforts from the politically motivated war effort. The research looks at how the military's intrusion affects the working environment and development approach of the humanitarian community. The study includes the position of the United Nations who are mediators between humanitarian agencies and the military, but are non-the-less challenged by this new military paradigm. By exploring the military's motivation for their new course of action and comparing it with the response from the humanitarian sector, the research identifies a number of key problems and conflicts, that have affected the relief and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. As a result, an emerging crisis is identified and it's potential to exacerbate human suffering in new post-conflict environments is emphasised. The analysis concludes by identifying de-conflict options, recommending policies to the international community, and suggesting a way forward.
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ItemContainment and cooperation: continuity in U.S. policy toward the People's Republic of China during the Cold War( 2004)President Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) was a critical milestone in the history of Sino-U.S. relations. The move put an end to two decades of mutual hostility and opened up a period of strategic cooperation between the two countries. The significance of the event is so often stressed that it creates an impression that there are two distinct periods of U.S. policy toward the P.R.C. - containment during the 1950s and 1960s and strategic cooperation in the 1970s and 1980s. This thesis challenges this conventional wisdom. It finds that the United States has continuously contained the P.R.C. throughout the Cold War but it has also been willing to cooperate to achieve important interests. Of course there are differences of emphasis that allow us to distinguish the period before the Nixon visit from the period that followed after, but American strategists have never regarded the choice between cooperation and containment as mutually exclusive. Both goals have been pursued simultaneously. The thesis is structured around the following key arguments relating to the relationship between the United States and the P.R.C.: • During the 1950s and 1960s, containment was the dominant dimension in U.S. Asian policy but cooperation between the two states to achieve specific objectives was also important. • During the 1970s and 1980s, the United States viewed the P.R.C. as a strategic partner and worked closely with it in confronting the Soviet Union; nevertheless, containment was an important U.S. goal during this period and remained an integral part of its calculations in its dealings with the communist state. • Overall, throughout the Cold War, containment and cooperation were pursued together as part of a continuous U.S. strategy in confronting the Chinese communism. The thesis shows the importance of the relationship between the United States, a world superpower with interests in the Asian region, and the P.R.C., a regional communist power that is able to do both harm and good to the former's interests.
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ItemCivil service ethics and corruption: a comparative study of Vietnam and the United States( 2004)Corruption is a global problem. To deal with corruption in developing countries, one common solution often proposed is to apply methods used successfully in advanced countries such as the United States. The thesis tests the appropriateness of such an approach in the case of Vietnam. It argues that the anti-corruption strategies of the United States are inapplicable for Vietnam because of the different nature of corruption situation. It concludes that anti-corruption methods of one country should not be imposed on others.
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ItemShadows and substance: the formation of a radical perspective in American China studies, 1968-1979( 1987)American perceptions of China, according to Stanford Professor Harry Harding, were subject to “regular cycles of romanticism and cynicism, of idealization and disdain”. A quick glance at the American record does confirm that the Chinese have been repeatedly described as the most remarkable people on earth; or, in their faceless mass, the most fearful monsters. Despite American China specialists continuously confessing that China is “dim, distant and very little known,” American images of China keep flickering between the good and the evil. Just within the past fifty years, this perceptual pendulum has had several dramatic swings. From the faith expressed in Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), as a “sage” and a “man of destiny” and that the KMT was China’s last chance in the 1930s, to President Harry Truman’s final description of the KMT elite (including Chiang) as being “all thieves”; from the initial empathy which many China specialists felt for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a possibly better alternative for China in the 1940s to their later insistence that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was extreme, irrational and a dangerous enemy to the so-called “free-world”; from the unanticipated infatuation with the PRC in the early 1970s, which quickly replaced two decades of American hostility, to the new wave of negativism, which arrived at the end of the 1970s and loudly proclaimed “China stinks!” in the early 1980s. It is difficult to believe that China could actually have undergone such diverse changes to fit these various American descriptions. Given the fact that large-scale American China studies did not really take shape until the 1950s, and very little in the way of reliable data was available to the United States after it broke off diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1950, it is justifiable to argue that American perceptions of China might have less to do with the empirical reality of China at any given time than with that of the United States itself. This thesis analyses the swing of U.S. Sinophila and the beginning of disillusion which took place in the field of American China studies from 1968 through 1979. The author attempts to explain how different circumstances, frames of mind and sets of values which American scholars brought to their studies shaped their approaches and coloured their judgement. This inquiry had its initial genesis in an interest in the ideology and politics of American Sinology. However, given the scope and complexity of the issue, such a project is beyond a single person’s ability to comprehend, especially when working under an academic deadline. The task of a thorough study of all American China scholars who had romanticized the PRC in the 1970s also seemed impossible without making some very broad generalizations. Hence, the scope of this work is narrowed to simply focusing on the formation, growth and dissolution of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS) from 1968 to 1979.