This thesis investigates the extent to which international law provides a normative framework for the management of the Spratly Islands area in the absence of agreed maritime delimitation, with the... Show moreThis thesis investigates the extent to which international law provides a normative framework for the management of the Spratly Islands area in the absence of agreed maritime delimitation, with the aim of maintaining peaceful coexistence of the disputant States and promoting international cooperation. In addition to the introductory and concluding chapters, this thesis consists of two parts: Part I (Coexistence) and Part II (Cooperation). Part I, comprising chapters 2-4, seeks to set out a predictable territorial order and a permissible scope for unilateral behaviours to ensure peaceful coexistence of the disputant States. Part II, including chapters 5-7, outlines international legal frameworks for inter-State cooperation in resource and pollution management concerning the Spratly Islands area. This thesis concludes that the functions of international law in managing this region can be achieved through the interaction between its substantive and procedural elements, despite its limitations resulting from the classic ‘territoriality’ model of jurisdiction. This thesis will hopefully provide a balanced perspective on the roles of international law and advocate a blueprint of cooperation that can be undertaken at a relatively low level of efforts or changes by making use of the existing international instruments or available cooperative mechanisms as much as possible. Show less
This dissertation is an ethnographic research of three groups of people from South Korea to China -- parents, students and educational agents -- focusing on their ‘greed’, expectation, anxiety, and... Show moreThis dissertation is an ethnographic research of three groups of people from South Korea to China -- parents, students and educational agents -- focusing on their ‘greed’, expectation, anxiety, and dread regarding education. Examining this sheds light on the subjectivities of the people who are confronted with their structural positioning as being sojourners from South Korea and foreigners in China. The individual desire on education is induced by and reflects China’s national ambition in pursuit of educational internationalization and Korea’s compulsion to incorporate overseas nationals into its rhetoric of globalisation. Both nation-states confer political privileges on the children of overseas Korean nationals in their educational trajectories. As a result, individuals are empowered to creatively comply with, tactically appropriate, or, simply discard educational arrangements by the states. Paradoxically, they simultaneously encounter regulatory, socio-economic, and geographical constraints as they reside in China and make plans for further migration. This thesis demonstrates that ethnic solidarity is restrictive in helping Koreans obtain opportunities that they expect to have. Koreans are increasingly scattered depending on their social-economic statuses and set out to merge with non-ethnics. This trait offers a significant insight into the nuanced tendency of the Chinese immigration policy. Show less
Over the past thirty years, China has been witnessing the largest internal migration in the history of the world. Among the studies of labour migrants in China, ethnic minorities have been... Show moreOver the past thirty years, China has been witnessing the largest internal migration in the history of the world. Among the studies of labour migrants in China, ethnic minorities have been largely ignored. This study fills in this research gap by focusing on ethnic Yi workers who migrate from the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Region to the Pearl River Delta area of China. It explores how and why an exploitative and controlling co-ethnic brokerage system is formed and sustained; and how class, ethnicity, and gender intersect in producing the social inequality of Yi labour migrants through the co-ethnic brokerage system. Based on seven and a half months of fieldwork, this thesis analyses the social transformation of Yi society, the formation of Yi co-ethnic brokerage system, the collective and non-collective resistance, and the intersection of Yi labor migrants and the local state in the Pearl River Delta area. The situation of Yi labor migration is conceptualized as “entrapment by consent”, meaning that workers are not coerced by but compelled to rely on an exploitative and controlling co-ethnic brokerage system. I suggest that the crux to understanding the unequal status of Yi migrant workers is the intersection of class, ethnicity and gender. Show less
This dissertation aims to identify patterns in the managerial processes during an enterprise system implementation (ESI) period. An ESI remains a notorious challenge. In most cases, it concurrently... Show moreThis dissertation aims to identify patterns in the managerial processes during an enterprise system implementation (ESI) period. An ESI remains a notorious challenge. In most cases, it concurrently involves business strategy change, organizational change, and technical innovation. This dissertation adopts structuration theory as a __sensitizing device__ for understanding change forces behind an ESI. A pattern-recognition method is used to extract and describe patterns of managerial processes out of the structuration insights. Two sub-structuration processes are selected in order to make the structuration process observable and identifiable for the pattern recognition: Communicating significance by top management and facilitating learning for ESI. Ten in-depth empirical cases are studied in a longitudinal way. The main contribution of the thesis is four-fold: (1) the thesis designs a pattern-recognition method for conducting process studies (Structuration); (2) A set of process patterns are identified. These patterns clearly show the predictive power of the process studies; (3) A method to operationalize structuration theory. The __modalities__ embedded in the structuration framework are operationalized as a specific set of techniques within certain managerial processes which are observable and actionable; (4) New insights into the performance criteria of a strategic ESI project. A success of an ESI should not only be decided by operative criteria, but also should be judged by the achieved strategic impact. Show less
