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The ever-increasing population and resource demand are putting a stress upon the planet's resources. This increased demand places an even greater need today for the exploration of alternative, greener fuels that can aid in the alleviation of the traditionally used fossil fuels. One such method is in the production of acetone, butanol and ethanol (ABE) by the bacteria genus Clostridium spp. These gram-positive anaerobic bacteria were first characterised in the late 19th centaury and have been used throughout the 20th and 21st centauries for their solvent producing capability, most notably in the supply of weapons grade acetone during the first world war. After falling out of favour in the last half of the 20th century due to competition with cheaper and more readily available petrochemicals; interest in ABE production via Clostridium spp. has been on the rise in recent years as the ABE fermentation is investigated for its potential as a greener more renewable source of fuel production. As interest in ABE fermentation has been on the rise in recent years, so too has our understanding of the genus as a whole. Traditionally C. Acetobutylicum first described by Chaim Weizmann in the early 20th centaury has been the industrial strain of choice. However, as the overall understanding of the strains has improved other strains have been explored for their industrial relevance. These are largely split into two characterisations, autotrophs who are able to fix CO2 and CO, converting them acetyl-CoA for solvent production and heterotrophs who are able to metabolise hexose sugars in solvent production. The strain used in this study is Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum N1-4(HMT). Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum N1-4(HMT) is a heterotrophic Clostridium species first described by (Hongo and Ogata, 1969) . Herein we have utilised CLEAVEÔ, this is a CRISPR/Cas system developed by Green biologics ltd. CLEAVEÔ was used for the deletion of the gene gapN from the genome of Clostridium saccharoperbutylacetonicum N1-4(HMT). GapN is a cytosolic nonphosphorylating NADP-dependant GAPDH that catalyses the irreversible oxidation of glyceraldehye-3-phospate (G3P) to 3-phospholycerate. Deletion of gapN causes a reduction in acid production, an increased rate of solvent production to pre-toxic concentrations, as well as an increase in ATP and ratio of NADH:NAD+. Additionally, the deletion of gapN results in an increase in formic and lactic acid production that is believed to be as a result of pyruvate accumulation in response to the earlier shift into solventogenesis in gapN deletion strain.

The god Seth was depicted in both zoomorphic and bimorphic form. In zoomorphic form he was depicted as a canine-like animal with a down curved muzzle, upright squared-off ears and an erect tail, whilst in bimorphic form he was portrayed as a human male with the head of the Seth animal. Although much has been written on the mythology of Seth and identification of the Seth animal, no in-depth research has been undertaken regarding the variations that occur in his images over the dynastic period of Egyptian history. This thesis looks at the variations in the images of Seth and how he was represented in temples, tombs, written texts and in personal adornment. A comparison of the variations of his component parts leads to a comprehensive understanding of the different forms employed and allows the questions to be answered of whether there was ever a fully defined standard representation or if each image was an individual interpretation of a loosely defined theoretical form. Additionally, the study of the use of the zoomorphic and bimorphic Seth images within the Nile Valley and Western Desert oases provides the further understanding of the form of the proscription against Seth.

The changing context of mental health care provision in the United Kingdom in the last three decades has seen significant change in acute inpatient services. Service users have expressed dissatisfaction about current service provision and care. Nurses continue to represent the largest professional group providing care in these services. Comparatively little is known from nurses' perspectives about the present nature of the nurse-patient relationship in acute mental health inpatient settings. The purpose of this research study was to explore with a sample of 14 registered mental nurses, their experiences about the nature of the nurse-patient relationship. An interpretive, phenomenological approach was adopted. The principal research question asked 'What are registered mental nurses' experiences of the nature of the nurse-patient relationship in working age acute inpatient mental health care settings?' Following ethical approval, unstructured, individual interviews were used as the primary method of data collection. Transcribed interview texts were analysed hermeneutically, supplemented with the researcher's field notes and reflective journal. Key findings included the impact of poor ward environments, increased patients' acuity of illness, and multiple, competing demands placed on nursing time. Although nurses valued human interpersonal relationships with patients, they struggled to achieve their aspirations for the nurse-patient relationship, owing to a range of factors including organisational constraints, inexperience, and limited post-registration professional development. Nurses could experience stress and emotional fatigue, and their needs for support were not always met. These factors may challenge possibilities for the development of therapeutic nurse-patient relationships. Whilst nurses appear to acknowledge the benefits of therapeutic nurse-patient relationships, they may be insufficiently prepared to achieve their ideals, given the challenges of working within an area of practice which provides for short term admissions focussed on acute risk management and containment.

This dissertation examines the relations between the local base of the anti-Iraq War movement and the local press in the UK. It is, as such, a study of the interactions between local newsworkers and local activists, as well as a Content Analysis study of how the Iraq crisis, and particularly opposition to military action, was reported on in the pages of the local press. Key questions to be addressed include how local journalists assessed the legitimacy of the antiwar movement; how, and the reasons why, opponents of the war sought local press coverage, and with what consequences (if any) their interactions with the media may have had for the movement; and how the local press handled the almost uniquely controversial nature of the Iraq crisis in its reporting. Most previous research on the Iraq crisis has focused on the national media local media has hitherto been absent from the research agenda. Likewise, the majority of research on social movements has usually focused on the national leaderships of those movements again the local dimension of social movements has rarely been studied. In these ways it is hoped that the study makes a unique contribution to research into both the reporting of the Iraq crisis, and to the study of the interactions between social movements and the media.

A two dimensional discrete vortex method has been developed to simulate the unsteady, incompressible flow field and aerodynamic loading on bluff bodies. The method has been validated successfully on a range of simple bluff geometries, both stoic and oscillating, and has also been validated on a wider range of problems including static and oscillating suspension bridge deck sections. The results have been compared with experimental data and demonstrate good qualitative and quantitative agreement, and also compare favourably with other computational methods. Most notably, the method has been used to study the aeroelastic stability of a recent bridge deck, with accurate predictions of the critical flutter velocity. The basis of the method is the discretisation of the vorticity field into a series of vortex particles, which are transported in the flow field that they collectively induce. In the method presented herein, the time evolution of the system of particles is calculated by solving the vorticity transport equation in two stages: employing the Biot-Savart law to calculate particle velocities and random walks to simulate flow diffusion. The Lagrangian approach to the calculation avoids the necessity for a calculation grid, and therefore removes some of the problems associated with more traditional grid based methods. These include numerical diffusion and difficulties in resolving small scale vortical structures. In contrast, vortex methods concentrate particles in areas of vorticity, and can provide high quality representations of these small scale structures. Dispensing with a calculation mesh also eases the task of modelling a more arbitrary range of geometries. In particular, vortex methods are well suited to the analysis of moving body problems. Results of the validation exercise are firstly presented for a range of simple bluff geometries to give confidence in the results before moving on to more complex geometries. These results include the effect of incidence on the aerodynamic loading for a stationary square cylinder, and also a study of the effect on aspect ratio for rectangular cylinders. This includes the limiting case of a flat plate. Vortex lock-in is studied on a square cylinder undergoing a forced transverse oscillation, for a range of frequencies and amplitudes. The results in each of these cases are in good agreement with experimental data.

A variety of amino functional compounds were attached to silica particles through the use of a 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane intermediary. The resultant amines were also converted to their dithiocarbamates. Characterisation of the immobilised functional groups was achieved and demonstrated the presence of a variety of different chemical structures on the silica surface. The functionalised silicas were subjected to a rapid and efficient screening tehcnique which defined their chelating properties and revealed three modifying agents, ethylenediamine N.N'bis dithiocarbamate, diethylenetriamine monodithiocarbamate and propan-l,3-diamine, which were subjected to more intense study. These three modifying agents were capable of preconcentrating copper, nickel, chromium, cobalt and cadmium in the 0.01-10 ug.l"1 range from estuarine water samples by a factor of 100 prior to determination by electrothermal atomic absorbtion.

The TraT protein is a surface-exposed lipoprotein, specified by plasmids of the IncF group, that mediates serum resistance and surface exclusion. The structure and functions of the TraT protein determined by plasmid R6-5 were probed by genetic insertion of a foreign antigenic determinant, the C3 epitope of poliovirus, at residues 61, 125, 180, 200 or 216 of the protein. The chimeric proteins were transported to the outer membrane and, in three cases, immunoassays with an anti-C3 monoclonal antibody indicated that the C3 epitope was exposed on the cell surface. Three of the hybrids, with insertions at residues 125, 180 and 200, assembled into the trypsin-resistant oligomeric form characteristic of the wild-type protein suggesting that these regions are not involved in TraT subunit: subunit interactions. The hybrid protein carrying the C3 epitope at position 180 retained surface exclusion activity and functioned in a genetic suppression assay indicating that its localization, folding and organization was not grossly altered from that of the wild-type protein. However, none of the proteins mediated serum resistance. These results suggest that the surface exclusion and serum resistance activities of the TraT protein may be functionally separable. Applications of the protein for the transport of foreign antigenic determinants to the cell surface are discussed. Additionally, from cloning and sequencing of traT from the IncFII plasmid Co1B-K98, the region of TraT protein responsible for specificity of surface exclusion was located and confirmed experimentally.

A brief introduction to certain practical and theoretical aspects of the study of the vibrational spectra of crystals is given. The major part of the work presented concerns the assignment of the vibrational modes of some metal carbonyl compounds, detailed below. Single crystal infrared reflectance experiments (and transmission experiments for the 20 to 200 cm-1 region) have been obtained for the hexacarbonyls of chromium, molybdenum and tungsten at 100 K. These have been combined with low temperature single crystal Raman data in order to provide a more complete assignment of the spectra of these species. A study of the vibrational spectra of the decacarbonyls and bromopenta-carbonyls of manganese and rhenium has enabled a more detailed and internally consistent assignment to be proposed for their spectra. Infrared data at c. 100 K have been collected for Fe2 (CO)9 in the 20 to 250 cm-1 region using polycrystalline samples, and these are supplemented by infrared reflectance data for the 200 to 2500 cm-1 region. Combining this work with existing Raman data this led to an assignment which reveals substantial coupling between the two sets of terminal carbonyl groups. An assignment for the v(CO) region for the dodecacarbonyls of ruthenium and osmium is offered on the basis of a single crystal infrared reflectance study, in combination with existing Raman data. Low temperature infrared data for Ir4 (CO)12 have been obtained from 20 to 2500 cm-1, and these are supplemented by new ambient temperature Raman data. The construction of the spectrum is accounted for on the basis of a coupling scheme. The final chapter is concerned with the identification of the libration- al modes of water; after an introduction to the topic, which highlights some of the difficulties in assigning these modes, the librational modes of water in CsMnCl3.2H2O are assigned.

This thesis has the twin purposes of (a) providing an historical narrative of the evolution of social democratic, conservative and liberal approaches to crime in Britain since the war, and (b) (in part through this historical investigation) beginning to reconstruct the social-democratic form of "socialist-criminology", in both its academic and political versions, for present and future use. The thesis is therefore organised in part as a chronological investigation. Chapters One, Two, Three, Five and Six focus in part on the general development of the crime debates in the 1940's, the middle 1950's, the early 1960's, the late 1960's to early 1970's, and the late 1970's respectively. But they also depart from a purely chronological presentation in order to allow a more detailed interrogation of particular topics in popular, political and academic debate. Thus, Chapter One attempts to describe the general character of social democratic criminology in the form it assumed in the 1940's, with an eye to its longer term effects in the later post-war period. Chapter Two contains an analytical essay on the responses of the different ideologies to Homicide and Capital Punishment. Chapter Three departs from its narrative to examine the re-emergence of the youth problem in the early 1960's as a major social issue. Chapter Five devolves around an essay on the rapid development of the major institutions of State power (particularly, social work, the police and prisons) during the late 1960's and the early 1970's; and Chapter Six, with its historical focus on the late 1970's, contains two other essays: (a) on the rise of the radical Right and its critique of criminal justice and social welfare systems, and (b) an analysis of the relationship between Conservative and Social-democratic ideology and the particular questions of the criminality of the powerful and so-called organised crime. Chapters Four and Seven depart from this form of presentation. Chapter Four provides an account and a critique of social democratic approaches to crimes against women and the criminality of women. Chapter Seven is the programmatic conclusion to the critique of social democratic criminology provided earlier: it is an attempted first move, in seriously changed circumstances (at the end of the post-war boom), to sketch out the elements of a reconstructed socialist criminology.

Some reactions of Group VIII complexes of unsaturated phosphines are described. The project falls into three parts. The first section deals with various aspects of the preparation of unsaturated phosphines and includes a review of the factors effecting the course of the reaction between metal phosphides and alkyl halides. An improved method of generating lithium dialkylphosphide is described, using naphthalene as a catalyst for the cleavage of tetra-alkyldiphosphine in tetrahydrofuran. Using this technique several new dialkylphosphino derivatives have been prepared. As an alternative route to 1,4-bis(dimethylphosphino)but-2-ene, the addition of tetramethyl-diphosphine to butadiene was investigated; the course and the mechanism of this reaction are discussed. This section also includes the first reported preparation of B-acetylenic phosphines, and their rearrangement is described. The preparation of platinum(II) and palladium(II) complexes of unsaturated phosphines, together with a discussion of their structures, is described in the second section. It is apparent that whether there is co-ordination from the olefin or acetylene group to the metal in addition to that from the phosphorus depends on the length of the carbon chain between the two donors. Novel dimeric structures are suggested for the complexes of l,4-bis(phosphino)but-2-enes. In the third section are described the reactions of the methoxide ion with olefins activated by co-ordination to platinum(II), and with olefins and acetylenes unco-ordinated to, but in the environment of, platinum(II). The physical and chemical evidence for the unusual structures involving platinum- carbon o-bonds which are suggested for the resulting complexes is discussed.

This study is concerned with Mozambique's energy diplomacy. Its objectives are twofold: to advance and apply relevant theoretical concepts, while providing empirical insights into the drivers of risk propensity in energy diplomacy. Despite the increasing relevance of Africa as an alternative source of energy, and mounting empirical evidence of local strategies of regime security based on energy resources, scholarship on the interplay between energy and foreign policy as a strategy for regime security of energy-producing states in Africa remains scarce. Prospect theory postulates that decision makers engage in risky diplomatic behaviour when facing losses but, will be risk-averse when facing gains. The case of Mozambique is intriguing, however, as risk propensity in the energy sector sometimes appears to follow a logic contrary to prospect theory's predictions, and to respond to objectives beyond the energy sector itself. The emerging question is: What determines risk propensity in Mozambique's energy diplomacy? To answer this question, this thesis focuses on the case of hydroelectricity, specifically the 1984 Cape Town Tripartite Agreement on the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric dam and the 2007 Cahora Bassa reversion to Mozambique. I apply a qualitative research methodology and expand prospect theory by adding regime security as a condition variable, which allows for the examination of how situations and context relative to regime security affect Mozambique's risk propensity in energy diplomacy. The main argument is that, although actual risk propensity emerges from within the energy sector, risk propensity in Mozambique's energy diplomacy is driven by aversion to perceived losses relating to regime security. The study concludes that it is the quest for regime security, and the concomitant economic benefits for elites, that drives risk propensity in the energy sector, rather than the prospects of losses and/or gains relative to energy security.

REDD+ is a global programme for disbursing funds, primarily to pay national governments in developing countries to reduce forest carbon emission. REDD+ is presently translated from global discourse into national arena amidst on-the-ground realities of weak governance, corruption, and power struggles. This thesis responds to these concerns towards implementing REDD+ policy sustainably. In the last 5 years, Nigeria REDD+ went through a national readiness phase and is piloted at sub-national scale. However, its governance is essentially a political process likely to face strong opposition from those benefiting from the status quo. This thesis conducts an exploratory analysis to investigate how global REDD+ policy discourse transforms in a local political setting, to have in-depth understanding of how different forms of governance influence forest policy outcomes. I draw on political ecology in an investigation of the politics over forest management and builds on a modified '4Is' analytical framework - Institutions, Interests, Ideas and Information - to explore actors' perceptions to analyse REDD+. The study was qualitative in design and employed the triangulation approach, participant observation, document analysis, FGDs and interview methods to establish the problem. Unpacking REDD+ design and implementation interaction could holistically identify intrinsic institutional impediments in the context of sustainable development. An analysis brings up a number of key issues. Actor constellations understand, interpret and implement REDD+ through a 'complex' governance setting, deeply entrenched political system. This limit the potential for transforming a business-as-usual to achieve emissions reductions. I question the naïve assumption that Nigeria REDD+ is a "win-win" strategy under the 'rules of the game', as against the performed 'tricks of the game' embedded in the political context. Throughout this thesis I argue that Nigeria REDD+ is seized upon as an opportunity to promote neo-patrimonial governance system. Findings suggest therefore, the potential for its long-term sustainability will be a challenge.

Over the past decade, infrastructure development has turned from a peripheral phenomenon into a key pillar of cooperation between China and Africa. This study scrutinises the political economy of Chinese infrastructure projects in Africa - both in theoretical and empirical terms. Informed by a critical realist philosophy of science, this research has been characterised by an iterative methodological movement between conceptual abstractions and the concrete cases under scrutiny, viz. Zambia's road sector and the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA). Drawing on David Harvey's theory of spatio-temporal fixes, the study posits that Africa's recent infrastructure boom is driven by Chinese overaccumulation. A strategic-relational approach to the structure-agency conundrum is employed to trace African state agency in the unfolding of the Chinese 'infrastructural fix' and to assess how African governments are differentially constrained and enabled by their particular structural contexts. With respect to Zambia's road sector, it is argued that the infrastructural fix has been fostered by the government's ambitious, debt-financed infrastructure development agenda as well as by 'not so public' procurement processes. More recently, Zambia's shrinking fiscal space has caused a shift in the governance of the 'fix' from public debt financing to private project finance, thereby heralding new rounds of accumulation by dispossession. In the case of TAZARA, the Chinese infrastructural fix has not yet materialised because of a changing balance of political forces in Tanzania. President Magufuli's time in office has been characterised by rigid state interventions vis-à-vis foreign investment, a relative strengthening of legal-rational bureaucratic procedures and the resuscitation of developmentalist policies. This has translated into strategic pragmatism and cautious cost-benefit analyses regarding a Chinese participation in TAZARA. The study concludes that the extent to which Sino-African cooperation in the infrastructure sector affords 'win-win' results is largely contingent upon African state actors and their differentially constraining structural contexts.

In the Horn of Africa prevailing ideas of the state continue to be heavily contested both within and across formal borders. This thesis explores how the post-1991 Ethiopian government has given meaning to the Ethiopian state as an international actor, and how the state identity narratives with which it does so have shaped its entanglement with the state (re)construction process in Somalia. It contributes to the literature on international politics in the Horn of Africa by drawing attention to the role that state identity narratives play in assessing threats to the state and creating horizons and boundaries of engagement. The thesis builds on an analytical framework that combines a focus on biographical narratives with an ontological security perspective to readdress the identity/foreign policy nexus as a field of enquiry in International Relations. It foregrounds self-identification narratives rather than the mechanism of othering, and captures the sustained political efforts that have gone into maintaining and adapting biographical narratives to establish a sense of ontological security for Ethiopia as a distinct polity and international actor. Based on a discourse analysis of Ethiopian government representations over the period 1995 to 2016, this thesis argues that the government's dominant biographical narrative has created existential boundaries of the state that necessitate an active engagement in the Horn of Africa, and has shaped how it has perceived threats to, and has sought security for, the Ethiopian state in relation to political developments in Somalia. The thesis concludes that while the Ethiopian government has been able to maintain a stable link between its identification of Ethiopia as a regional force for peace and its engagement in Somalia, it has been unable to resolve deeper tensions resulting from the way it imagines Somalia as a future state, because to do so would undermine its own foundational narratives.

In order to aid in the design of scramjet propulsion systems at high Mach number operation, this works considers the Eddy Dissipation Model (EDM) to describe the combustion process inside an open-access Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver. Typical CFD modeling approaches for turbulent supersonic reacting flows are associated with a high computational cost. This in turn inhibits the use of CFD in scramjet combustor design or in higher level preliminary designs such as the trajectory optimization process of a scramjet powered vehicle. Instead, low-fidelity models are preferred to charaterize the propulsion system in the latter type of application. The EDM relies on simplified assumptions regarding the combustion process whose validity is thought to be prevalent at high Mach number scramjet operation. It is therefore a suitable candidate model in order to introduce more routinely CFD in scramjet preliminary design phases. As part of the present work, first steps include the selection of an open-source CFD solver followed by several validation studies. After its implementation, a critical numerical analysis of the EDM is performed by considering three hydrogen-fueled experimental scramjet configurations with different fuel injection approaches. Its application is further investigated with a mainly kinetically controlled scramjet design where the underlying assumptions of the EDM are not valid anymore. Finally, the EDM is applied to a combustor design problem demonstrating the metrics of interest that can be relied on for this task.

This thesis asks how voice enables youth to claim agency within divided societies, and what are the implications of this in terms of conflict and peacebuilding? It is an analysis of the significance of young people's voices to international relations. The research is framed in terms of human rights and human security, children's rights, and recognition theories. Its aim is to draw conclusions both about the nature of voice and agency, or power, and about how the framing of the present research in this area impacts the ability of the discourse to take into account the significance of listening to those who are marginalized. From these starting points the thesis will explore questions such as the following: In what ways do children have a voice? If young people had more of a voice, would it make a difference? Does having a voice lead to power? If so, does this create a culture of respect for this voice, and in turn an increase in the speaker's ability to claim agency? Does increasing participation have an impact upon people's likeliness to resort to violence? These aspects are important because they contribute to knowledge and frameworks for peacebuilding in post-conflict areas and the link between voice and violence may provide a key to reducing youth violence in post-conflict areas, but most significantly, hearing young voice could contribute to a sustainable peace, envisioned by and cultivated by the very generation that must own that peace if it is to become lasting.

Following the dramatic takeoff of contemporary China-Africa relationship in the late 1990s, this once neglected international phenomenon has become one of the most topical themes over the past decade. This new popularity is due not only to the growing importance of both China and Africa on the global stage, but also China's rapidly increasing foreign aid on the continent. However, whilst most scholars are focusing on the financial side of the story – the massive concessional loan deals, the generous investments in natural resources and so forth, the primary purpose of this foreign aid – assisting African recipient countries' economic and welfare development – has only generated minimal interest. Little is known regarding how China delivers its foreign aid, and even less about how this foreign aid actually works in the African recipient countries. In light of this situation, this study asks: How has China's foreign aid been assisting Africa's development? On the basis of drawing specific attention to the effectiveness and sustainability of China's foreign aid in Africa, this study also explores the factors that affect these outcomes. Which, as this study finds out in the end, friendship – a factor that is often overlooked by Western scholars and patriotically examined by Chinese scholars. Not only has it continuously played a substantial role in shaping the development of China's foreign aid in Africa, but it is also frequently the most influential underlying consideration that practically undermines China's foreign aid outcomes. All in all, whilst purposed to promote China's foreign aid outcomes, this study improves our understanding of China's foreign aid in Africa. As well it delves into the development of China's foreign aid in Africa, assesses its performance, this study finds the shortcomings of China's foreign aid at present and searches for practical solutions that may contribute to its future development.

This thesis investigates the capacity of the newly introduced Chinese Special Economic Zones in Africa (CSEZAs) to deliver ‘cooperation' and ‘mutual development' to China and Africa. Referring to existing scholarship on other forms of liberal spatial economics, it addresses the conceptual, methodological and theoretical void in which the subject of CSEZAs evolves in academia. As extensive global interactive processes are identified in the schema of the CSEZA, this thesis advocates Andre Gunder Frank's Dependency Theory as the appropriate prism through which to explicate the new zone format. Empirical data about the seven CSEZAs outline the problematic and development-conducive aspects of the zone model. It is argued here that the failure to customise the SEZ model to the African context is what corrodes the developmental prospects of the CSEZAs. The Mauritius JinFei Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone is taken as an example of a problematic CSEZA. A detailed analysis of the Mauritian case allows a visualisation of the respective role of China and the African state in the CSEZA context. As the exploitative and non-developmental nature of the CSEZA model (in its current form), is established, this thesis concludes that the CSEZA gives a new interpretation to the traditional practice of dependency. This new version, nonetheless, exacerbates the dialectic development-underdevelopment processes integral to the global capitalist economy.

The thesis addresses the role of national oil companies and their overseas engagement in the foreign policy decision-making process of states. Over the past 40 years, national oil companies have gained importance in the international oil industry and currently control around 90 per cent of the global oil reserves. A number of political and economic factors – depleting domestic reserves, economic growth – have resulted in an increasing expansion of Asian national oil companies to Africa. Through the use of two Asian national oil companies – Malaysia's Petronas and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) – and their overseas engagement in Sudan and South Sudan as case studies, the thesis assesses three aspects: factors and motives that influence the relationship between government institutions and Petronas and ONGC, the connection between this domestic relationship and the overseas engagement of both companies, and the implications of the overseas engagement of Petronas and ONGC in both Sudans for the foreign policy decision-making process of Malaysia and India. This set of questions is analysed through a comparative case study design that is supported by in-depth interviews and based on Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), proposing a four-level theoretical framework. This thesis thus seeks to demonstrate how FPA can help assess the connection between the domestic decision-making process and the international engagement of the companies. In doing so, it not only argues that process and engagement are in fact connected, but also critically addresses conventional assumptions about the overseas engagement of national oil companies. Furthermore, this thesis questions the idea that government institutions and national oil companies act in a coherent and coordinated manner when operating abroad.

Since February 2008, the Kenyan government and society have been the focus of continued debate and sustained criticism from the global human rights and transitional justice community concerning the authenticity of the multiple transitional justice mechanisms that have been implemented in the country. Drawing from more than four years of fieldwork in Kenya and nearly 160 interviews with major Kenyan policymakers, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), local and international NGOs, public intellectuals, retired judges, international legal commentators and human rights advocates in Addis Ababa, Cape Town, Geneva, London, Paris, and The Hague, this thesis identifies the political logic behind the justice-and reconciliation-seeking policy initiated by the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) policy. In its consideration of the complexity of defining and executing justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in Kenya, this thesis attempts to explain how the continuing effort to increase democratisation and implement reforms following the post-election violence has inaugurated the use of a new language of transitional justice policy. It argues that such precarious trends present more instructive opportunities for–as well as obstructions to–international engagements in Kenya. Revisiting the reflections of Critical Peacebuilding Scholarship (CPS) and Critical Legal Studies (CLS) on the administration of justice, this thesis suggests that the interaction between transitional justice and liberal peacebuilding exhibits a precarious condition for navigating law and politics in post-conflict reconstruction studies. However, it also suggests that the success of this interaction depends on the ability of the international society to understand that a liberal cosmopolitan conviction of justice, peace, reconciliation, accountability and mitigating impunity via the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the national Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) has not addressed the needs of the victims or succeeded in combating the infamous legacy of impunity in Kenyan politics. The utilitarian approach to understanding retributive and restorative theories of transitional justice is inimical and univariate, and excludes the local political contingency of Kenyan history. Consequently, it fails to provide a sound understanding of the power relations and ideological apparatus of the ICC and TJRC in the neo-patrimonial logic of Kenyan politics. Drawinng on Michel Foucault's theory of power and Louis Althusser's theory of ideology, this thesis suggests that the IDPs' needs for justice and reconciliation are not satisfied by the solutions prescribed by international policymakers and the Kenyan ruling class. This thesis concludes that further attempts to empower the IDPs through transitional justice mechanisms have suffered from the overwhelming politicisation of justice in Kenya and the call for a greater recognition of the logic of neopatrimonialism in policing justice in Kenya. By recognising the transitional justice mechanisms' inability to resolve 'everything', or to implement a one-size-fits-all policy of liberal peace in Kenya's recent democratic crisis, this thesis illustrates how the IDPs used everyday acts of resistance as a mode of survival. It also shows how the ICC's intervention and the release of the TJRC report have made the environments in which the IDPs live more hostile and difficult, which has hindered the process of normalising and reintegrating them back into society. Challenging the narrative of peaceful 2013 elections in Kenya and demystifying the successful political reconciliation that Kenya's Government of National Unity (GNU) claims to have effected, this thesis reveals how the ICC and TJRC have become forms of disciplinary technology and ideological apparatus with which the ruling class disenfranchises and marginalises the IDPs, and keeps the "hidden transcript" regarding state, law and politics away from the eyes of the ordinary populace.

Hybridity, as it is currently understood in the Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) and International Relations (IR) literature, is defined by the complex interactions between ‘the liberal peace' and ‘the local'. However, under this theoretical liberal-local rubric, the ways in which power is practiced has already been determined; how resistance is expressed and the forms it assumes have already been established. While it has yielded numerous important insights into how power circulates and resistance manifests in peacebuilding operations, the theoretical approach conceals other significant dynamics which escape detection by ‘the liberal peace' and ‘the local'. However, these undetected dimensions of hybridity comprise the very processes that emerge in ways which destabilise the boundaries between ‘the liberal peace' and ‘the local' and reshape the contours of the emerging post-liberal peace. Instead of accepting the liberal-local distinction which defines this theoretical hybridity, this thesis advances an alternative methodological approach to exploring the tensions at play in peacebuilding projects. Rather than deploying theoretical distinctions in order to explain or understand complex hybrid processes, this thesis develops a methodological strategy for exploring the tensions between how actors design a peacebuilding project and how that project changes as actors work to translate that project into complex, everyday living sites (Callon, 1986; Law, 1997; Akrich, 1992). This tension is expressed as practical hybridity. The process of practical hybridity unfolds as the concrete material changes, modifications, and adaptations that emerge as actors appropriate and contingently translate organised practices in new ways and for different purposes. Through an ongoing process of practical hybridity, the boundaries and distinction which define the distinction between ‘the liberal peace' and ‘the local' become increasingly unstable. Amidst this instability, the practices which characterised ‘the liberal peace' are becoming stretched into a post-liberal peace. Drawing on the work of Richmond (2011a; Richmond & Mitchell, 2012), Latour (1987b; 1988; 2004), and Schatzki (2002), and based on over five months of field research, this this thesis traces the process of practical hybridity at play during the implementation and evaluation of a peacebuilding project in Liberia. I participated as a research assistant on a Randomised Control Trial (RCT), implemented by a small research team under the auspices of the Oxford University's Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE). The team was assessing the impact of a legal empowerment programme managed by The Carter Center: the Community Justice Advisor (CJA) programme. As the CSAE's evaluation of the CJA programme unfolded, many dynamics associated with theoretical liberal-local hybridity surfaced; however, it also became apparent that this theoretical formulation obscured important dimensions which were reshaping what peacebuilding practice is in the process of becoming in the emerging post-liberal world.

Critics of the liberal peace point out that the imposition of liberal democratic structures of governance through United Nations Peacekeeping Operations has not led to a sustainable peace being built. In reply, supporters of the liberal peace argue that even though the liberal peace is imperfect, there are no better alternatives. The objective of this thesis is to examine the Chinese approach to peacebuilding and explore the possibility that it may be a potential alternative to the liberal peace. The thesis examines the Chinese understanding of the causes of insecurity in Africa, what the Chinese position is with regards to United Nations peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions in Africa; and what role China see itself playing vis-à-vis United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in Africa. The Chinese approach to peacebuilding recognises poverty alleviation as the foundation upon which sustainable peace can be built in post-conflict countries. Beijing does not believe the external imposition of a political ruling superstructure can succeed, and sees the liberal peace as neo-colonialism and liberal hubris. However, there is no set Chinese model of peacebuilding which can replace the liberal peace, or which African countries might follow. This is because the Chinese developmental model respects the local context, is based on pragmatism, and relies on trial and error to find the way forward. The Chinese have been keeping a low profile in the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and have focused on providing transportation and logistical support to UNMIL. The Chinese focus on infrastructure rehabilitation is appreciated by Liberians and is making a positive contribution to the life of ordinary people. On the deep societal divide that lies at the heart of the Liberian civil war and continues to cause instability, both the Chinese approach to peacebuilding and the liberal peace remain silent.

This thesis' central aim is to rethink regional security cooperation in southern Africa by transcending the geopolitics that has been characteristic to the region. The constructivist inspired regional security complex theory is thus preferred as an analytic device through which a non-statist understanding of security within the region could be conceived. Furthermore to understand how the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is involved in the (re)construction of the region, the region building approach is adopted although the thesis is mindful of the fact that this approach is relevant to regions that have high levels of regionality. Comprehension of the regional security cooperation could not be possible without deconstructing the taken-for-granted understanding of regional security cooperation. To this end, post-modern and post-structuralists traditions become sites in which the altered and reformulations of regional security cooperation can be imagined with the hope of re-imagining new interpretations of regional security politics. Thus, linguistically inspired methodology and methods are embraced in order to unmask the taken for granted understandings and transform them into objects of discussion and criticism. Therefore, SADC's critical and ironic security dynamics are considered within the post-modern tradition without necessarily engaging in the aesthetics of this tradition. Zimbabwe as a case illuminates the limits of modernistic understanding of regional security cooperation. The thesis concludes by proposing regionalist understanding of security alternatives that are based on integrated analysis of security threats and preventative approach to responses.

This thesis provides a moral analysis of micro-regional forces in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, using the framework of the New Regionalism Approach (NRA). It presents an original contribution to the field through the addition of the Ghanaian-Ivoirian case study, as well as a unique application of Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach to the NRA. In an attempt to counter the view that borders in Africa are artificial, arbitrary and the result of colonial imposition, this research employs the Capabilities Approach, providing a narrative of both positive and negative impacts resulting from the opportunity created by borders in West Africa. The way in which the Ghanaian-Ivoirian border is used by individuals in their security strategies in the face of economic deprivation and physical threats represents a positive impact of borders. Conversely, the role of borders in the continued prevalence of human trafficking in West Africa is also questioned in this piece, providing a balanced account of the impact of borders. This research concludes that the Ghanaian-Ivoirian border presents opportunities that can be exploited to both positive and negative ends at the micro-regional level. This interpretation suggests that any complete account of borders in West Africa more broadly ought to employ a moral framework in addition to a multi-levelled scale of analysis.

This research makes use of a Constructivist approach to norm development, in particular the concept of the norm life cycle, to assess the emergence and development of the responsibility to protect as a norm in international society in relation to the conduct of interventions on humanitarian grounds. This study finds that the responsibility to protect emerged relatively rapidly in international society as a norm relevant to the formulation and implementation of international responses to conflict situations characterised by the commission of atrocity crimes. Indeed, between 2001 and 2010, this study finds that the responsibility to protect norm became codified and entrenched in international organisation, and could therefore have been expected to influence state behaviour, and the discourse surrounding that behaviour, in relation to the conduct of interventions on humanitarian grounds. However, through an assessment of the application of the norm through the United Nations and the African Union to the conflicts in the Darfur region of Sudan from 2003 onwards, the study finds that the norm, while featuring relatively prominently in discourse surrounding Darfur between 2007 and 2008 in the United Nations, appears to have receded thereafter, disappearing from discourse by 2009 altogether, and appears not to have been useful to the attainment of its content goal, namely preventing or halting the commission of atrocity crimes, in the case of Darfur. Indeed, the norm may even have contributed to complicating, as opposed to facilitating, international engagement on Darfur. This study explores the apparent contradiction between the emergence and entrenchment of the responsibility to protect norm in international society at the same time as the norm appears to have increasingly faded from discourse surrounding international responses to the conflicts in Darfur, and assesses the implications of this both for the future development and utility of the norm, as well as for future responses to conflicts characterised by atrocity crimes on the African continent.

The inter-scalar interaction of norms is pervasive in African hydropolitics due to the nature of freshwater on the continent – shared, strategic and that which necessitates cooperation. However, with few exceptions, particular norms created at specific levels of scale have been researched in isolation of those existing at other levels. It is argued that this exclusionary approach endangers the harmonised and integrated development of international water law and governance, producing sub-optimal cooperative strategies. The notable contributions of Ken Conca and the Maryland School’s research on the contestation of norms occurring at different levels of scale, and Anthony Turton’s Hydropolitical Complex (HPC), will be examined through a Constructivist theoretical lens, in terms of their applicability to furthering an understanding of multi-level normative frameworks. Through the use of the Orange-Senqu River basin, and the Nile Equatorial Lakes sub-basin (NELSB) as case studies, it is argued that norm convergence is possible, and is occurring in both case studies analysed, although to varying degrees as a result of different causal factors and different biophysical, historical, socio-political and cultural contexts. This is demonstrated through an examination of regional dynamics and domestic political milieus. Notwithstanding their varying degrees of water demand, Orange-Senqu and NELSB riparians present fairly different political identities, each containing existing constellations of norms, which have affected the ways in which they have responded to the influence of external norms, how the norm is translated at the local level and to what extent it is incorporated into state policy. In so doing, the interface between international norms and regional/domestic norms will be explored in an attempt to understand which norms gain acceptance and why. It is therefore advocated that a multi-level interpretation of norm development in Africa’s hydropolitics is essential to an understanding of the interconnectedness of context, interests and identities. Each level of scale, from the international to the subnational, give meaning to how norms are translated and socialised, and how they in turn, transform contexts.

In surveying the literature on land tenure reform in Africa, what can readily be observed is that much of that body of work has comprised a markedly econometric and technical focus, to the neglect of evidently contiguous political factors. As a result, fundamental structural impediments to reform efforts have largely been ignored - a fact that may be reflected in the failure of many titling interventions. In light of this omission, the nature of political economy in both Ethiopia and Africa more generally is delineated in this thesis, in order to construct a more rounded conceptual framework through which the issue of land tenure can be deciphered. In so doing, the model of the ‘neopatrimonial’/anti-developmental state is utilised as a benchmark against which twentieth century Ethiopian regimes, and in particular the incumbent EPRDF Government, are assessed. Considerable evidence is uncovered to support the view that, despite its unique historical experience of independence, contemporary Ethiopia nevertheless fits with many key aspects of the neopatrimonial model – most notably in the Government’s pursuit of political survival and revenue to the neglect of long-term sustainable development. It is therefore argued that political imperatives have undermined the establishment of a progressive economic agenda in the country, and the ways in which this has affected land tenure are delineated. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the contemporary debate on tenure reform in Ethiopia has taken a form that is somewhat myopic and circuitous, possibly in an attempt to circumvent discussion of controversial political issues. It is argued that this apolitical stance has undermined not only the debate itself, but also the practical intervention strategies that have emerged from it, such as the recent land titling and administration project in Ethiopia. It is therefore concluded that the only means of escape from this theoretical and practical impasse is to reintegrate politics into the analysis.