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From Cybercultural studies to new Web science, Media and Communication theory engage in analyzing scientific models of the Internet that are mostly homogeneous : models built on the faith in the universal language of networked information and tending to creating norms and/or rules for network communication. There are new cultural, economical and even political institutions appearing that rely on a vehicular model that is widely accepted, although criticized.In my thesis I come back to the sources of this criticism by opening a vernacular perspective, which is a concept borrowed from socio-linguistics and reinterpreted under the light of network culture. It allows to think about the relation between values (the vulgar, the popular, the trivial) and media practices of groups manifested as Internet folklore. From the point of view of a local theory (Jacques Perriault), the vernacular perspective opens a field of analysis understood as composite (Joëlle Le Marec), that is a complex of unstable relations between discourse and matter, technologies and their uses, practices, representations and norms. Folklore, by definition formalist and traditional, transforms itself within network culture to become a media process based on appropriation and commentary, two of the most crucial characteristics of the Internet thought of as meta-medium (Philip Agre). Folklore and vernacular provide important elements to sketch a cultural theory of information and communication in terms of « triviality »' (Yves Jeanneret) – a culture defined by is mediations and transformations. This thesis, by investigating archeologically the archives of Internet's micro-history to dig out its folklore, analyzes dynamically contexts that have allowed the social information of contemporary network culture.Studying two periods of network history that are defined partly by the tools of access to the Internet (Usenet in the 80's and early 90's and the Web 1.0 in the 90's and the 2000's), my research takes a close look at how Internet folklore is invented, experiment, produced and reproduced interacting with content-management media (emailing and newsgroups, homepages, blogs). These apparatuses are seen as « architexts » (following French semiology in media interfaces), which content cannot be understood without an analysis of their system and forms (their « metaforms ») and the process of computer and cultural codes that defined their context of production.A first series of case studies dig out the roots of Internet folklore, its emergence within the first large-scale virtual community : Usenet – and in particular the alt. newsgroup hierarchy. From ASCII Art to Flame Wars and through the pantheon of Net.legends, I show how the leisure and experimental use of communication and information processing rules allow the users to confront the difficulties and dead-ends of collective regulation. The Usenet public, celebrating and participating in network folklore, is testing instruments that give power in writing and expressing opinions. These situations are named « metatexts » : they develop commentaries and folkloric theories on the complex problem of « metarules ». From an Internet micro-historical point of view, they are the basis of a sub-culture that reinvented public discourse within a network context : commenting, conversing, evaluating and filtering, all through the computer media.A second series of case studies approaches network folklore from another angle. Through and experience of participant-observation, I borrow the outlook of two generations of Internet artists on Web popular creativity. The first generation, net.art, considered as pioneer in art happening on the Web in the mid-90's, starts a process of valuing and mediating amateur creativity in the homepages. The second generation, the surfclubs, recipient to the net.art heritage in the context of Web 2.0, give a new understanding and context to network cultural practices within collective blog networks inspired from image forums, the new territories of emergence for network folklore. The eye of Net art channels the observation of a specific evolution of network vernacular : conflicts about the value and the legitimation of this cultural « popular » matter seem to resolve in the new mainstream tendencies of the social Web. New leisure figures appear, between amateur and professional network practices, inspired by the aesthetic and the informational value of Internet folklore. This issue opens up new discussion on the socio-economics of network culture.The vernacular perspective updates the conflictual relations between, technology, society and culture that have built the Internet and marked its history. Its shows that they are dialogic articulations between users' creativity and institutional norms that structure the network environment. It uncovers little known archives that reveal the voices of the actors of this cultural micro-history. it signals epistemological problems about material and methods for network culture analysis by suggesting that this should be handled from the bottom up, accompanying the emergence of media practice in the cultural economy of today's Web. ; De la perspective cyberculturelle aux nouvelles sciences du Web, les Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication étudient des modèles scientifiques d'Internet marqués par une forme d'homogénéité : celle portée par la croyance en un langage universel de l'information et tendant vers la normalisation et/ou la régulation des outils de la communication en réseau. Ainsi, les nouvelles tendances à l'institutionnalisation de la culture, de l'économie voire de la politique des réseaux reposent sur un modèle véhiculaire prégnant et généralement accepté, bien que souvent critiqué.Je propose de revenir aux sources de ces critiques en les envisageant sous la dimension du vernaculaire, notion empruntée à la socio-linguistique et réinterprétée sous l'angle de la médiation de culture informatique en réseau. Dans ce cadre, cette notion permet de penser l'articulation entre des valeurs (le vulgaire, le populaire, le trivial) et des pratiques médiatiques de groupes qui se manifestent dans un « folklore Internet ». Attachée à une théorie locale des usages techniques (J. Perriault), la perspective vernaculaire ouvre un terrain d'analyse placé sous le sceau du composite (J. Le Marec), c'est-à-dire les relations instables et complexes d'artefacts faits de discours et de matière.Le folklore, par définition formel et traditionnel, se transforme au sein de la culture de réseau pour devenir un processus de médiation fondé sur l'appropriation et le commentaire, deux des grandes caractéristiques d'Internet pensé comme méta-médium (P. Agre). Folklore et vernaculaire fournissent des éléments importants pour envisager une théorie culturelle de l'information et de la communication en termes de « trivialité » (Y. Jeanneret) – une culture définie par ses médiations et ses transformations. Cette thèse se propose, en allant faire l'archéologie des archives de la micro-histoire d'Internet pour y retrouver son folklore, d'analyser de manière dynamique les contextes qui ont permis l'information sociale de la culture de réseau contemporaine.A partir de deux périodes de l'histoire des réseaux marquées par deux réseaux privilégiés d'accès à Internet (Usenet, années 1980-1990 ; le Web, années 1990-2000), j'analyse les contextes de communication dans lesquels un folklore Internet s'invente, s'expérimente, se produit et se reproduit en interaction avec des dispositifs de médiation de contenu en réseau (messagerie, pages personnelles, blogs). Adoptant un point de vue « architextuel » (empruntant à la sémiotique des interfaces et des médiations informatisées), mes études s'intéressent tout aussi bien aux contenus qu'aux formes et métaformes ainsi qu'aux processus de codification informatiques et culturels de ces contextes.Une première série d'études de cas se penche sur les racines du folklore Internet, son émergence au sein de la première communauté virtuelle de grande ampleur, Usenet – en particulier dans la hiérarchie alt. du groupe. De l'art ASCII aux flame wars en passant par le panthéon des célébrités de Usenet, je montre comment l'usage ludique et expérimental des règles de communication et du transfert d'information sur le réseau permettent aux usagers d'affronter les difficultés et les apories de la régulation collective. Le public Usenet, dans la célébration et sa participation au folklore de réseau, teste des instruments qui lui donne un pouvoir d'écriture et d'opinion. Ces situations, je les nomme « métatextes » : des commentaires ludiques et des théories folkloriques sur la question complexe des « métarègles ». En terme de micro-histoire de l'Internet, elles sont fondamentales pour comprendre, à partir de ce qui était à l'origine une sous-culture, le développement culturel du commentaire et de la conversation, de l'évaluation et du filtrage de l'informatique sur le réseau actuel.Une deuxième série approche le folklore de réseau sous une autre forme, et dans une perspective différente. J'emprunte, dans le cadre d'une expérience d'observation-participante, le regard de deux générations d'artistes Internet portées sur la création populaire du Web. Le net.art, pionnier de l'art sur le Web dans les années 1990 (Web 1.0), valorise et médiatise la créativité amateur des pages personnelles. Les surfclubs, héritiers directs dans le cadre du web social des années 2000 (Web 2.0), recontextualisent ces pratiques au sein de réseaux de blogs et s'inspirent des forums d'images, nouveaux lieux d'émergence du folklore Web. L'oeil du Net art permet d'observer une évolution particulière du vernaculaire de réseau : les conflits de légitimation de cette matière culturelle « populaire » semblent se résoudre dans les nouvelles tendances du Web social pour donner lieu à de nouvelles figures du loisir en ligne. Apparaissent alors des professionnels qui s'inspirent de l'esthétique et des pratiques informationnelles des amateurs et les remédiatisent. Cette « résolution » est en fait l'entrée dans de nouveaux enjeux, socio-économiques cette fois, qui pour être compris devront être analysés à partir de cette généalogie historique du vernaculaire Internet.L'approche vernaculaire permet de mettre à jour les conflits techniques, sociaux et culturels ayant joué un rôle crucial dans l'histoire d'Internet : elle éclaire l'articulation dialogique entre la créativité des usagers et les normes institutionnelles qui structurent l'environnement-réseau. Elle fait découvrir des archives peu connus qui révèlent les voix des acteurs micro-historique du réseau des réseaux. Elle signale une série de problèmes épistémologiques sur les matériaux et les méthodes d'analyse de la culture d'Internet en proposant une vision d' »en bas » (« bottom up ») qui accompagne l'émergence des médiations de l'économie culturelle du Web d'aujourd'hui.

Unlike much of the secondary literature on Shakespeare, "Immanent Shakespeares: Politics, Performance, and Pedagogy" labors less to determine what Shakespearean texts might mean than to explore the cultural work these texts do while working in conjunction with contemporary institutions of learning and technologies of performance. Shakespeare studies too often takes the determination (or destabilization) of meaning as its telos, even when it's largely informed by performance criticism. This project sets meaning aside to focus on how Shakespeare's textuality gets mobilized through performance in order to produce material effects--effects that exceed and shape semantic meaning. Semantic and hermeneutic vocabularies leave performance scholars very few terms with which they might interrogate performance's most salient features: duration, embodiment, light, discipline or affect. Making and coming to terms with what Shakespeare can do inevitably involves refiguring the relationship between Shakespeare's text and performance practices. In the dissertation, I argue that the field of Shakespeare studies too often figures the difference between textuality and performance spatially . These spatial models figure performance in prepositional relation to textuality: performances arise from the text or are interpretations of textuality. Performance has largely been understood as an interpretation of a Shakespearean meaning residing within a static (albeit polysemic) textuality. On stage or on screen, performance is continually represented as exterior to--and is considered over-determined by--textuality. My project, instead, figures the difference between stage/screen and page in terms of time. This move, from figures of space to figures of time, forces a reconsideration of many disciplinary assumptions (in literary, film and performance studies). Cultural studies' spatializing tendency, inseparable from the way it often figures difference (as "difference between" two discrete identities), is rooted in a long history of transcendental dialectics. Textuality and performance are framed, spatially, in terms of transcendence (even when stage-centered criticism tries to invert this relation, prioritizing performance, it nevertheless continues to understand difference within a transcendental relation). My project moves from a transcendental, spatial understanding of difference to one rooted in immanent, temporal duration. Giorgio Agamben recently identified "two different trajectories in contemporary French philosophy, both of which pass through Heidegger: a trajectory of transcendence , which includes Levinas and Derrida and goes back through Hussurl to Kant; and a trajectory of immanence , which includes Foucault and Deleuze, and goes back through Nietzsche to Spinoza." The dissertation works throughout to illustrate how this shift--from transcendental, spatial constraint to immanent, temporal production--allows for more nuanced discussions of elements constitutive of performance. The project considers Shakespearean performance within a variety of institutional arenas; different chapters consider reading practices, teaching practices, student performance, theatrical enactment, and new (and old) media engagement. This approach entails a series of interlocking, close, rhetorical readings of particular performances, theatrical/filmic/video/digital media technologies, arts/educational legislation, as well as the institutional discourses accompanying each. These close readings work to refigure the problem of textuality and performance in civic, aesthetic and pedagogical discourses; each chapter, subsequent to this refiguration, ends by proposing innovative, practice-based solutions. In Chapter One, I build on the critique of spatialized understandings of text and performance outlined in the introduction in order to argue that the humanities' figuration of difference and power (alongside attendant assumptions about the relationship between self and structure) continues to hide more than it reveals about culture, history, power and performance. In the chapter, I argue for and illustrate what an alternative, immanent critique might look like. The chapter focuses on two "objects" (a methodological term which seems to point to how performance is always already spatialized): 1) a "radical" or "transgressive" performance of Macbush , a contemporary re-imagining of Macbeth , and 2) a seemingly co-opted, official, "normative" performance of Macbeth sponsored by Boeing, the "right-wing" NEA, and the US Department of Defense. The chapter examines these two ostensibly opposed productions by rehearsing a dialectical or "transcendental" critique and using a common (hackneyed) reading of de Certeau's strategy/tactic distinction--one which emphasizes and prioritizes de Certeau's interest in space. I then complicate this reading by showing how de Certeau's figuration of power and performance within the panoptic city already includes an inclination towards an immanent understanding of power's circulation--one that emphasizes time and complicates the spatial cartographies upon which dialectical movement finds its ground and proper "identity." Through this immanent reading, I argue that dialectical understandings of culture and power rely upon a particular way of understanding the priority of space, one strengthened by Cold War discourses of cultural fronts and quantitative, incursive movements through homogenous space (both Macbeth and Bush, in prioritizing the stability of space over the contingencies of time, make this same tragic flaw in different ways). Ultimately, I argue that an immanent understanding of culture and power corresponds with contemporary changes in the shape of Empire and new ways of conceptualizing the flows of global capital, ways rooted in performance's duration and affect. Further, this immanent reading (and the shape of Empire and history correlative to this approach) highlights the dangers of the Left's reliance upon historical analogies that flatten important differences between Vietnam and Iraq or between Bush and Macbeth. Chapter Two develops the notion of immanent critique by revisiting dualistic notions of self and structure in film theory and performance studies. In this chapter, I look at the spatial arrangement of spectators, specific media, and apparatuses of projection. Through a reading of Prospero's Books , a 1991 "new media" film using proto-HDTV technologies and bourgeoning CGI graphics software, this chapter looks at film's ability, through these technologies, to trouble film theory's traditionally spatial understanding of filmic semiotics and the spectator's relation to the (transcendent) filmic apparatus. This chapter introduces an immanent performance theory to film theory by offering a new reading of the latter's key texts--from Munsterberg and Armheim, to Balazs and Metz, to Benjamin's Artwork essay--highlighting along the way each theorist's relation to the "immanent turn" in cultural studies. Key here will be the role each theorist gives to temporal relations. Particularly useful in rethinking the spectator's relationship to the (new or old media) apparatus is Benjamin's notion of "creative innervation"--a term he uses to show how the spectator's body is productively enlivened, rather than negatively determined, by a technological apparatus which becomes, for him or her, a prosthesis. This chapter puts Benjamin into contact with Deleuze to sketch out what an immanent model of reception might entail once traditional notions of the filmic apparatus' (over-) determinism have collapsed. This immanent understanding of filmic reception--a productive reception modeled in Prospero's Books --builds upon various notions of "pseudopresences" and theories of "affective faciality/physiognomy" sketched out by twentieth century film theorists in order to rethink the presence/absence binary and the various ways in which this binary gets unevenly mapped onto the disciplines of theatre and film. Chapter Three looks at how changing technologies continue to reconstitute the disciplinary gulf between film and theatre. In this chapter, I look at two interlocking performances: Richard Burton's 1964 Electronovision Hamlet and the Wooster Group's "new media" Hamlet . Working with Deleuze's idea of "the theatre of repetition," and continuing to work with Walter Benjamin's notion of "creative innervation," this chapter examines the technologies of repetition each Hamlet employs in order to read, write, and perform with the pre-recorded yet affective and "pseudopresent" specters of history. In July of 1964, three performances of the Burton-Gielgud Hamlet were recorded and edited together thanks to "miracle of Electronovision." The resulting "Theatrofilm" was then screened for two days in over one thousand theaters in order to give audiences the "liveness" of a Broadway show right in their own local theater. Recently, the Wooster Group has been staging another version of Hamlet , one that utilizes the Isadora and Final Cut Pro platforms to digitally remix and reframe the Burton-Gielgud production as an historical background upon which the company acts. Onstage, The Wooster Group imitates the 1964 Hamlet gesture for gesture in what the group likens to an archeological reconstruction, but I argue for an alternate figuration, one that is less spatial and more temporal in its figuration of history. This chapter uses these two performances (and their contemporary technologies) to ask how the so-called "new" media differently mediate our relationship with the past. I argue that new technological interfaces enable us to engage in historiographical research on stages and screens in ways that are singularly durational and within registers that are incommensurate to the textual historiographies of journals and monographs. Each of the Hamlet productions I treat figures a relation to history, treating the past as an interactive ensemble of images that are engageable yet immutably scripted. Chapter Four begins my engagement with critical pedagogy as I attempt to rework Freirean accounts of the classroom as a space of cultural contradiction and potential "liberation." The chapter asks how we might instead see classroom practices as productive of political, economic and ethical behaviors. Since the 1980s, critical pedagogy has rallied for the inclusion of "hip hop in the classroom" as part of a culturally relevant, Freirean model of connecting language with the lived experience of inner-city youth. But the movement begins to achieve success at the very moment hip hop begins losing its geographic specificity. Recently, a number of programs ("Shakespeare is Hip Hop," "Shakespeare: the Remix," and "Shakespeare in Urban Slang") have sought to connect Shakespeare and hip hop as a way of bridging the divide between the spaces of high and low culture. In this chapter, I examine the strange effects of local, culturally specific pedagogical practices fusing Shakespeare and hip hop which--like the music itself--have been removed, practiced and copied outside of what was once their "proper" space. What happens when suburban youth are asked by their teachers to perform Macbeth in hip hop vernacular? YouTube abounds with blackface Shakespeare. More importantly, though, the chapter rethinks intercultural borrowing and how the logic of "appropriation" falsely frames culture as private property at the same time that young people who identify with remix culture increasingly strive for a "creative commons" and continually challenge the spatial proprieties of culture. This chapter puts the "culture wars" into dialogue with the "copyright wars" and argues that, in a world where the line between public and private properties and spaces is increasingly blurred by virtual glocalities, digital rights management software and copyleft legal theories, cultural studies needs to rethink the spatial logic of cultural appropriation. Chapter Five brings immanent critique to the space of the classroom by examining another the Shakespeare teaching docudrama. These films, both fictional and documentary, chronicle "successful" pedagogues and the at-risk students whose lives they transform. In this chapter, I look at a few of these films alongside the No Child Left Behind Act's legislation on "character education." Performing a genealogy of the "character education movement" from the Greeks to 21st century US contexts, this chapter looks at the way in which Shakespearean repetitions operate to construct both a particularly American Shakespeare as well as a particularly American characterization of the student body. Centering on Prince Hal's Saint Crispin's Day speech, this chapter also explores the way in which discourses of national "character" and their corresponding pedagogies rely upon a particularly vertical (patrilineal, spatial, transcendental) notion of repetition and differentiation, one which might be refigured by Hardt and Negri's notion of how the immanent multitude operates in time. This chapter moves from the performance of character to a notion of "performing character." Much as earlier chapters refigured text/performance or apparatus/performance oppositions, this chapter shows how dialectical pedagogies might give way to durational, embodied performance pedagogies. The dissertation's concluding chapter, its post-script, uses the pedants of Love's Labour's Lost to engage in an interdisciplinary genealogy of the geek. I focus on three figures of the student body's relation to technology (the bookworm, the computer nerd, and the drama queen) in order to better understand how the "geek" has gained increased importance as a category of social difference and exclusion. The conclusion asks: How does the alterity of the geek historically produce and trouble the mutual exclusivity of love and labor , humans and machines, males and females, the curricular and the extracurricular, and/or the physical and the metaphysical? As a means of overcoming learning's alienation from the social, the dissertation concludes by introducing a "geek chic" performance pedagogy. This pedagogy uses training in digital video editing to include the social, and often virtual, extracurricular lives of students. Through editing their own performances (as they often already do within the world of social networking sites), students will rehearse the behaviors, gestures, expressions and temporal movements that constitute what we perceive as character. By examining these "character effects," students are trained to understand character differently--less as an originary space or cause of performance and more as a legible effect of performative behavior.

This paper derives an applied general political economy model incorporating a model of political decision making into a computable general economic equilibrium model. Political decision making among a set of legislators is modeled via a mean voter decision rule derived from a modified non cooperative legislative bargaining game of a Baron Ferejohn type. The model allows a simultaneous analysis of political and economic factors determining policy outcome and is applied to simulate future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) under various political and economic scenarios.

Der Artikel handelt in theoretischer Perspektive von der Relation zwischen Biografie und Institution, basierend auf empirischen Ergebnissen einer biografischen Studie über Frauen in Führungspositionen der politischen Institution Wohlfahrtspflege. Nach dem Zusammenbruch der DDR und deren politischer Institutionenordnung wird mit der deutschen Vereinigung das bundesdeutsche Institutionensystem auf den Geltungsbereich der neuen Bundesländer ausgedehnt. Dabei kommt der freien und öffentlichen Wohlfahrtspflege bei allen Frauen die Bedeutung eines biografisch begründeten Handlungstableaus zu. Zugleich ist zum Verständnis des Handelns der Frauen als strategische Akteure des Institutionenbildungsprozesses die theoretische Perspektive von "professions in process" (STRAUSS 1991) hilfreich. Vier empirische Typen konnten herausgearbeitet werden. Jeder der vier Handlungstypen repräsentiert diejenige biografische Prozessstruktur, die durch den Institutionalisierungsprozess der öffentlichen/freien Wohlfahrtspflege unterstützt oder neu belebt wird. Langfristig gesehen kommt es jedoch lediglich in den Fällen zu einer sich wechselseitig stabilisierenden Verknüpfung von Biografie und zu institutionalisierendem Handlungsfeld, bei denen eine politische oder moralische Mission ein konstitutiver Bestandteil eines biografischen Emanzipationsprozesses ist und die Frauen infolgedessen einen professionellen Habitus ausbilden.

The conceptual framework of neoclassical economics posits that individual decision-making processes can be represented as maximization of some objective function. In this framework, people's goals and desires are expressed through the means of preferences over outcomes; in addition, in choosing according to these objectives, people employ subjective beliefs about the likelihood of unknown states of the world. For instance, in the subjective expected utility paradigm, people linearly combine their probabilistic beliefs and preferences over outcomes to form an expected utility function. Much of the parsimony and power of theoretical economic analysis stems from the striking generality and simplicity of this framework. At the same time, the crucial importance of preferences and beliefs in our conceptual apparatus in combination with the heterogeneity in choice behavior that is observed across many economic contexts raises a number of empirical questions. For example, how much heterogeneity do we observe in core preference or belief dimensions that are relevant for a broad range of economic behaviors? If such preferences and beliefs exhibit heterogeneity, then what are the origins of this heterogeneity? How do beliefs and preferences form to begin with? And how does variation in beliefs and preferences translate into economically important heterogeneity in choice behavior? This thesis is organized around these broad questions and hence seeks to contribute to the goal of providing an improved empirical understanding of the foundations and economic implications of individual decision-making processes. The content of this work reflects the deep belief that understanding and conceptualizing decision-making requires economists to embrace ideas from a broad range of fields. Accordingly, this thesis draws insights and techniques from the literatures on behavioral and experimental economics, cultural economics, household finance, comparative development, cognitive psychology, and anthropology. Chapters 1 through 3 combine methods from experimental economics, household finance, and cognitive psychology to investigate the effects of bounded rationality on the formation and explanatory power of subjective beliefs. Chapters 4 through 6 use tools from cultural economics, anthropology, and comparative development to study the cross-country variation in economic preferences as well as its origins and implications. The formation of beliefs about payoff-relevant states of the world crucially hinges on an adequate processing of incoming information. However, oftentimes, the information people receive is rather complex in nature. Chapters 1 and 2 investigate how boundedly rational people form beliefs when their information is subject to sampling biases, i.e., when the information pieces people receive are either not mutually independent or systematically selected. Chapter 1 is motivated by Akerlof and Shiller's popular narrative that from time to time some individuals or even entire markets undergo excessive belief swings, which refers to the idea that sometimes people are overly optimistic and sometimes overly pessimistic over, say, the future development of the stock market. In particular, Akerlof and Shiller argue that such "exuberance" or excessive pessimism might be driven by the pervasive "telling and re-telling of stories". In fact, many real information structures such as the news media generate correlated rather than mutually independent signals, and hence give rise to severe double-counting problems. However, clean evidence on how people form beliefs in correlated information environments is missing. Chapter 1, which is joint work with Florian Zimmermann, provides clean experimental evidence that many people neglect such double-counting problems in the updating process, so that beliefs are excessively sensitive to well-connected information sources and follow an overshooting pattern. In addition, in an experimental asset market, correlation neglect not only drives overoptimism and overpessimism at the individual level, but also gives rise to a predictable pattern of over- and underpricing. Finally, investigating the mechanisms underlying the strong heterogeneity in the presence of the bias, a series of treatment manipulations reveals that many people struggle with identifying double-counting problems in the first place, so that exogenous shifts in subjects' focus have large effects on beliefs. Chapter 2 takes as starting point the big public debate about increased political polarization in the United States, which refers to the fact that political beliefs tend to drift apart over time across social and political groups. Popular narratives by, e.g., Sunstein, Bishop, and Pariser posit that such polarization is driven by people selecting into environments in which they are predominantly exposed to information that confirms their prior beliefs. This pattern introduces a selection problem into the belief formation process, which may result in polarization if people failed to take the non-representativeness among their signals into account. However, again, we do not have meaningful evidence on how people actually form beliefs in such "homophilous" environments. Thus, Chapter 2 shows experimentally that many people do not take into account how their own prior decisions shape their informational environment, but rather largely base their views on their local information sample. In consequence, beliefs excessively depend on people's priors and tend to be too extreme, akin to the concerns about "echo chambers" driving irrational belief polarization across social groups. Strikingly, the distribution of individuals' naivete follows a pronounced bimodal structure - people either fully account for the selection problem or do not adjust for it at all. Allowing for interaction between these heterogeneous updating types induces little learning: neither the endogenous acquisition of advice nor exogenously induced dissent lead to a convergence of beliefs across types, suggesting that the belief heterogeneity induced by selected information may persist over time. Finally, the paper provides evidence that selection neglect is conceptually closely related to correlation neglect in that both cognitive biases appear to be driven by selective attentional patterns. Taken together, chapters 1 and 2 show that many people struggle with processing information that is subject to sampling issues. What is more, the chapters also show that these biases might share common cognitive foundations, hence providing hope for a unified attention-based theory of boundedly rational belief formation. While laboratory experimental techniques are a great tool to study the formation of beliefs, they cannot shed light on the relationship between beliefs and economically important choices. In essentially all economic models, beliefs mechanically map into choice behavior. However, it is not evident that people's beliefs play the same role in generating observed behavior across heterogeneous individuals: while some people's decision process might be well-approximated by the belief and preference-driven choice rules envisioned by economic models, other people might use, e.g., simple rules of thumb instead, implying that their beliefs should be largely irrelevant for their choices. That is, bounded rationality might not only affect the formation of beliefs, but also the mapping from beliefs to choices. In Chapter 3, Tilman Drerup, Hans-Martin von Gaudecker, and I take up this conjecture in the context of measurement error problems in household finance: while subjective expectations are important primitives in models of portfolio choice, their direct measurement often yields imprecise and inconsistent measures, which is typically treated as a pure measurement error problem. In contrast to this perspective, we argue that individual-level variation in the precision of subjective expectations measures can actually be productively exploited to gain insights into whether economic models of portfolio choice provide an adequate representation of individual decision processes. Using a novel dataset on experimentally measured subjective stock market expectations and real stock market decisions collected from a large probability sample of the Dutch population, we estimate a semiparametric double index model to explore this conjecture. Our results show that investment decisions exhibit little variation in economic model primitives when individuals provide error-ridden belief statements. In contrast, they predict strong variation in investment decisions for individuals who report precise expectation measures. These findings indicate that the degree of precision in expectations data provides useful information to uncover heterogeneity in choice behavior, and that boundedly rational beliefs need not necessarily map into irrational choices. In the standard neoclassical framework, people's beliefs only serve the purpose of achieving a given set of goals. In many applications of economic interest, these goals are well-characterized by a small set of preferences, i.e., risk aversion, patience, and social preferences. Prior research has shown that these preferences vary systematically in the population, and that they are broadly predictive of those behaviors economic theory supposes them to. At the same time, this empirical evidence stems from often fairly special samples in a given country, hence precluding an analysis of how general the variation and predictive power in preferences is across cultural, economic, and institutional backgrounds. In addition, it is conceivable that preferences vary not just at an individual level, but also across entire populations - if so, what are the deep historical or cultural origins of this variation, and what are its (aggregate) economic implications? Chapters 4 through 6 take up these questions by presenting and analyzing the Global Preference Survey (GPS), a novel globally representative dataset on risk and time preferences, positive and negative reciprocity, altruism, and trust for 80,000 individuals, drawn as representative samples from 76 countries around the world, representing 90 percent of both the world's population and global income. In joint work with Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, David Huffman, and Uwe Sunde, Chapter 4 presents the GPS data and shows that the global distribution of preferences exhibits substantial variation across countries, which is partly systematic: certain preferences appear in combination, and follow distinct economic, institutional, and geographic patterns. The heterogeneity in preferences across individuals is even more pronounced and varies systematically with age, gender, and cognitive ability. Around the world, the preference measures are predictive of a wide range of individual-level behaviors including savings and schooling decisions, labor market and health choices, prosocial behaviors, and family structure. We also shed light on the cultural origins of preference variation around the globe using data on language structure. The magnitude of the cross-country variation in preferences is striking and raises the immediate question of what brought it about. Chapter 5 presents joint work with Anke Becker and Armin Falk in which we use the GPS to show that the migratory movements of our early ancestors thousands of years ago have left a footprint in the contemporary cross-country distributions of preferences over risk and social interactions. Across a wide range of regression specifications, differences in preferences between populations are significantly increasing in the length of time elapsed since the respective groups shared common ancestors. This result obtains for risk aversion, altruism, positive reciprocity, and trust, and holds for various proxies for the structure and timing of historical population breakups, including genetic and linguistic data or predicted measures of migratory distance. In addition, country-level preference endowments are non-linearly associated with migratory distance from East Africa, i.e., genetic diversity. In combination with the relationships between language structure and preferences established in Chapter 4, these results point to the importance of very long-run events for understanding the global distribution of some of the key economic traits. Given these findings on the very deep roots of the cross-country variation in preferences, an interesting - and conceptually different - question is whether such country-level preference profiles might have systematic aggregate economic implications. Indeed, according to standard dynamic choice theories, patience is a key driving factor behind the accumulation of productive resources and hence ultimately of income not just at an individual, but also at a macroeconomic level. Using the GPS data on patience, Chapter 6 (joint work with Thomas Dohmen, Armin Falk, David Huffman, and Uwe Sunde) investigates the empirical relevance of this hypothesis in the context of a micro-founded development framework. Around the world, patient people invest more into human and physical capital and have higher incomes. At the macroeconomic level, we establish a significant reduced-form relationship between patience and contemporary income as well as medium- and long-run growth rates, with patience explaining a substantial fraction of development differences across countries and subnational regions. In line with a conceptual framework in which patience drives income through the accumulation of productive resources, average patience also strongly correlates with aggregate human and physical capital accumulation as well as investments into productivity. Taken together, this thesis has a number of unifying themes and insights. First, consistent with the vast heterogeneity in observed choices, people exhibit a large amount of variation in beliefs and preferences, and in how they combine these into choice rules. Second, at least part of this heterogeneity is systematic and has identifyable sources: preferences over risk, time, and social interactions appear to have very deep historical or cultural origins, but also systematically vary with individual characteristics; belief heterogeneity, on the other hand, is partly driven by bounded rationality and its systematic, predictable effects on information-processing. Third, and finally, this heterogeneity in beliefs and preferences is likely to have real economic implications: across cultural and institutional backgrounds, preferences correlate with the types of behaviors that economic models envision them to, not just across individuals, but also at the macroeconomic level; subjective beliefs are predictive of behavior, too, albeit with the twist that certain subgroups of the population do not appear to entertain stable belief distributions to begin with. In sum, (I believe that) much insight is to be gained from further exploring these fascinating topics.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is the process of analyzing, monitoring and managing the social effects of planned or implemented development interventions. The primary purpose of SIA is to bring about a sustainable and equitable biophysical and social environment. SIA is a prerequisite in FAO and World Bank aided projects which cover sectors of mining, agriculture, fishery, dams and transportation. In forestry it has the great potential of enhancing sustainable forest management, taking into account rural development objectives and local needs. SIA can be applied before and after the implementation of projects and programs. In the context of recent policy changes in China, the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) has been implemented in a "top-down" process from 1998 to 2010. A large part of the forests on main river basins in Western regions are being conserved with severe restrictions for commercial use. The social effects of the NFPP are still debatable, indicating a need for conducting a SIA of the NFPP using a systematic conceptual approach. Objectives of the research are: (1) To understand how and to what extent the NFPP affected the local forest-dependent communities and their households; (2) To identify the local strategies currently used to cope up with the impacts; and (3) To develop the optimal strategies likely supported for a better harmonization between livelihood and the NFPP implementation in different regional contexts. The empirical research is approached through quantitative and qualitative social research methods for data collection and analysis. For the case studies, four villages with a total number of 175 respondents were selected for field surveys where questionnaires, interviews and group discussions were employed. The research findings indicate that, the NFPP has significant impacts on the population characteristics, institutional arrangements and infrastructure and public services at the community level and at household level, the income derivation, expenditure, labour time distribution, perceptions on public health/safety and changing values of forests perceived by individuals. The research reveals that, synthesizing de facto impacts of the NFPP makes potential negative social impacts predictable. The policy-makers and project teams implementing the NFPP should be aware that, the NFPP results in dynamic change processes which include the de facto and potential impacts as well as the influence factors; among these, contribution of strategies derived from local communities and households as the spontaneous reactions to cope with the NFPP impacts should be taken into consideration. Recommendations are given referring to a better implementation of the NFPP and the need for future researches concerning the SIA for sustainable forest management in different regional contexts.:TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . i LIST OF FIGURES . vi LIST OF TABLES . viii LIST OF BOXES . ix LIST OF ACRONYMS . x ABSTRACT . xii ZUSAMMENFASSUNG . xiii 1 INTRODUCTION . xiii 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Problem statement and justification . 5 1.3 Research objectives . 6 1.3.1 General research objectives . 6 1.3.2 Specific research objectives . 7 1.4 Structure of the dissertation . 8 2 CURRENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION . 10 2.1 General remark . 10 2.2 Forestry reforms in China . 10 2.2.1 China's forestry sector since the economic reform in 1978 . 10 2.2.2 Forest tenure and administration . 13 2.2.3 Chronology of sectional reforms in China and their consequences . 14 2.2.4 Policy reforms in the forestry sector . 18 2.3 The Natural Forest Protection Program . 21 2.3.1 Background and objective . 21 2.3.2 Scale and main contents . 21 2.3.3 Implementation process . 22 2.3.4 Budget . 23 2.3.5 Legal basis . 23 2.3.6 Current implementation status and main achievements . 23 2.3.7 Various impacts of the NFPP derived from previous researches . 23 2.4 Social Impact Assessment as a development tool . 25 2.4.1 Concepts of Social Impact Assessment . 25 2.4.2 A brief history of Social Impact Assessment . 27 2.4.3 Principles and guidelines for Social Impact Assessment . 29 2.4.4 Basic model of Social Impact Assessment . 29 2.4.5 Process of Social Impact Assessment . 31 2.4.6 SIA case study examples and matrix of common social indicators . 31 3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES . 38 3.1 General remark . 38 3.2 Basic settings in the ―Function evaluation‖ approach . 40 3.3 Integration framework: indirect and direct human impacts . 42 3.4 Conceptual framework of SIA: focusing on changes in social setting . 46 3.5 Human ecosystem as an organizing concept for SIA . 47 3.5.1 Concept of human ecology and human ecosystem models . 47 3.5.2 Systems model of human ecology . 48 3.5.3 Concept model of human ecosystems . 50 3.5.4 Learning from the two conceptual models of human ecosystem . 51 3.5.5 A local forest-dependent community as a small scale human ecosystem . 53 3.6 Framework conceptualizing social impacts in the empirical context . 55 3.7 Research questions . 57 4 RESEARCH METHDOLOGY . 60 4.1 Defining and operationalizing the research indicators . 60 4.1.1 Foundation of the definition . 60 4.1.2 Defining and operationalizing the selected research indicators . 62 4.2 Selection of case study areas . 68 4.3 Methods for quantitative and qualitative data collection . 71 4.3.1 Introduction . 71 4.3.2 Field reconnaissance survey . 71 4.3.3 Secondary data collection . 71 4.3.4 Primary data collection . 72 4.4 Data processing and analysis . 75 4.5 Research procedure . 76 4.6 Discussion on the attribution gap . 76 4.7 Reliability and validity of the field research process . 76 5 SCOPING AND OBSERVATION OF THE STUDY AREAS . 79 5.1 General remark . 79 5.2 Case study area 1: Gansu Xiaolongshan state-owned forest area . 79 5.2.1 General information of Gansu Province . 79 5.2.2 Profile of Xiaolongshan state-owned forest area . 81 5.2.3 Profiles of the villages investigated . 84 5.2.4 Characteristics of household respondents in the two villages . 86 5.3 Case Study Area 2: Chongqing collective-owned forest area . 87 5.3.1 General information of Chongqing Municipality . 87 5.3.2 Information on Dazu County and its collective forest area . 90 5.3.3 Profiles of the villages investigated . 92 5.3.4 Characteristics of household respondents in the two villages . 93 6 ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL IMPACTS AND CAUSAL ANALYSIS . 96 6.1 Social impacts on the local community level . 96 6.1.1 Change in the community population characteristics . 96 6.1.2 Change in the community institutional arrangements . 99 6.1.3 Change in the community infrastructure and public services . 111 6.2 Social impacts on the household level . 118 6.2.1 Impacts on households and families . 118 6.2.2 Impacts on individuals . 131 7 DIAGNOSIS: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION . 145 7.1 General remark . 145 7.2 The de facto impacts of the NFPP on local communities and households . 145 7.2.1 The social change processes in the local community . 145 7.2.2 Human impacts on the local households . 149 7.3 External and internal factors influencing the extent of impact results. 152 7.3.1 Introduction . 152 7.3.2 The external factors at community level . 152 7.3.3 The internal factors at household and individual level . 154 7.4 Potential impacts of the NFPP on the local community and households. 154 7.5 Dynamics of de facto and potential impacts, local strategies and influence factors 155 8 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS . 157 8.1 General remarks . 157 8.2 Recapitulation of major findings and conclusions . 157 8.3 Scope and limitations of the empirical study . 158 8.4 Recommendation for future policy implementation . 160 8.5 Relationship between theory and findings . 163 8.6 A critical review of methodology and implications for SIA research . 165 REFERENCES . 168 APPENDICES . 179 Appendix 1: Some data and background information available in literature . 180 Appendix 2: Supplementary material and material information used in research . 195 Appendix 3: Questionnaires used in the field surveys . 203 Appendix 4: Part of the data collected in the field . 212 Appendix 5: Photos in the fields . 234 ; Social Impact Assessment (SIA) ist ein Prozess, der Analyse, Monitoring und Bewältigung der sozialen Effekte geplanter oder durchgeführter Entwicklungsinterventionen umfasst. Das Hauptanliegen von SIA ist, eine nachhaltige und gerechte biophysische und soziale Umwelt zu schaffen. SIA ist für Projekte der FAO und der Weltbank in den Sektoren Bergbau, Landwirtschaft, Fischerei, Talsperren und Transport eine Grundvoraussetzung. Für die Forstwirtschaft ergibt sich daraus das Potenzial, nachhaltige Waldbewirtschaftung zu stärken und dabei die Ziele ländlicher Entwicklung und lokale Erfordernisse zu berücksichtigen. SIA kann vor und nach der Durchführung von Projekten und Programmen angewendet werden. Im Zusammenhang mit den aktuellen politischen Veränderungen in China wird das Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) im Zeitraum von 1998-2010 nach dem top-down-Verfahren durchgeführt. Die sozialen Auswirkungen des NFPP sind noch immer umstritten. Das unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit der SIA unter Anwendung einer systematischen konzeptionellen Herangehensweise. Ein besonders kritischer Faktor dabei ist, dass ein erheblicher Anteil der Wälder in den Wassereinzugsgebieten wichtiger Flussläufe in den westlichen Regionen durch strikte Einschränkungen der kommerziellen Nutzung geschützt wurden. Die Ziele der Forschung sind: (1) Aufzeigen wie und in welchem Ausmaß das NFPP die örtlichen waldabhängigen Gemeinden und ihre Haushalte beeinflusst hat; (2) Identifizieren lokal entwickelter und angewandter Strategien, um die Auswirkungen des NFPP zu bewältigen; und (3) Entwickeln optimaler Strategien für eine bessere Harmonisierung der Lebensgrundlagen mit der Umsetzung des NFPP in unterschiedlichen regionalen Kontexten. Die empirische soziale Forschung bedient sich quantitativer und qualitativer Methoden zur Datensammlung und Datenanalyse. Für die Fallstudie wurden vier Dörfer mit insgesamt 175 Befragten ausgewählt. Bei der Primärdatenerhebung kamen Fragebögen, Interviews und Gruppendiskussionen zur Anwendung. Die Forschungsergebnisse zeigen, dass das NFPP signifikanten Einfluss ausübt auf Größe und Anteil armer Bevölkerung, auf institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen, die Infrastruktur und den öffentlichen Dienstleistungssektor auf Gemeindeebene. Auf Haushaltsebene wurde signifikanter einfluss nachgewiesen für die Generierung von Einkommen, die Ausgaben, die Arbeitszeitverteilung, die Vorstellungen über Gesundheitswesen und Sicherheit als auch auf die Wahrnehmung der sich verändernden Werte des Waldes. Es wird ersichtlich, dass durch Zusammenführen der de facto-Auswirkungen des NFPP potenzielle negative soziale Einflüsse vorhersagbar werden. Entscheidungsträger und Projektteams sollten sich darüber bewusst werden, dass das NFPP zu dynamischen Veränderungsprozessen führt, welche die de facto- und potentiellen Auswirkungen sowie die Einflussfaktoren betreffen. Dies schließt den Beitrag der lokal entwickelten Strategien ein. Empfehlungen betreffen die bessere Umsetzung des NFPP sowie die Notwendigkeit weiterer Forschung hinsichtlich der SIA im Zusammenhang nachhaltiger Waldbewirtschaftung in verschiedenen regionalen Kontexten.:TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . i LIST OF FIGURES . vi LIST OF TABLES . viii LIST OF BOXES . ix LIST OF ACRONYMS . x ABSTRACT . xii ZUSAMMENFASSUNG . xiii 1 INTRODUCTION . xiii 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Problem statement and justification . 5 1.3 Research objectives . 6 1.3.1 General research objectives . 6 1.3.2 Specific research objectives . 7 1.4 Structure of the dissertation . 8 2 CURRENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION . 10 2.1 General remark . 10 2.2 Forestry reforms in China . 10 2.2.1 China's forestry sector since the economic reform in 1978 . 10 2.2.2 Forest tenure and administration . 13 2.2.3 Chronology of sectional reforms in China and their consequences . 14 2.2.4 Policy reforms in the forestry sector . 18 2.3 The Natural Forest Protection Program . 21 2.3.1 Background and objective . 21 2.3.2 Scale and main contents . 21 2.3.3 Implementation process . 22 2.3.4 Budget . 23 2.3.5 Legal basis . 23 2.3.6 Current implementation status and main achievements . 23 2.3.7 Various impacts of the NFPP derived from previous researches . 23 2.4 Social Impact Assessment as a development tool . 25 2.4.1 Concepts of Social Impact Assessment . 25 2.4.2 A brief history of Social Impact Assessment . 27 2.4.3 Principles and guidelines for Social Impact Assessment . 29 2.4.4 Basic model of Social Impact Assessment . 29 2.4.5 Process of Social Impact Assessment . 31 2.4.6 SIA case study examples and matrix of common social indicators . 31 3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES . 38 3.1 General remark . 38 3.2 Basic settings in the ―Function evaluation‖ approach . 40 3.3 Integration framework: indirect and direct human impacts . 42 3.4 Conceptual framework of SIA: focusing on changes in social setting . 46 3.5 Human ecosystem as an organizing concept for SIA . 47 3.5.1 Concept of human ecology and human ecosystem models . 47 3.5.2 Systems model of human ecology . 48 3.5.3 Concept model of human ecosystems . 50 3.5.4 Learning from the two conceptual models of human ecosystem . 51 3.5.5 A local forest-dependent community as a small scale human ecosystem . 53 3.6 Framework conceptualizing social impacts in the empirical context . 55 3.7 Research questions . 57 4 RESEARCH METHDOLOGY . 60 4.1 Defining and operationalizing the research indicators . 60 4.1.1 Foundation of the definition . 60 4.1.2 Defining and operationalizing the selected research indicators . 62 4.2 Selection of case study areas . 68 4.3 Methods for quantitative and qualitative data collection . 71 4.3.1 Introduction . 71 4.3.2 Field reconnaissance survey . 71 4.3.3 Secondary data collection . 71 4.3.4 Primary data collection . 72 4.4 Data processing and analysis . 75 4.5 Research procedure . 76 4.6 Discussion on the attribution gap . 76 4.7 Reliability and validity of the field research process . 76 5 SCOPING AND OBSERVATION OF THE STUDY AREAS . 79 5.1 General remark . 79 5.2 Case study area 1: Gansu Xiaolongshan state-owned forest area . 79 5.2.1 General information of Gansu Province . 79 5.2.2 Profile of Xiaolongshan state-owned forest area . 81 5.2.3 Profiles of the villages investigated . 84 5.2.4 Characteristics of household respondents in the two villages . 86 5.3 Case Study Area 2: Chongqing collective-owned forest area . 87 5.3.1 General information of Chongqing Municipality . 87 5.3.2 Information on Dazu County and its collective forest area . 90 5.3.3 Profiles of the villages investigated . 92 5.3.4 Characteristics of household respondents in the two villages . 93 6 ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL IMPACTS AND CAUSAL ANALYSIS . 96 6.1 Social impacts on the local community level . 96 6.1.1 Change in the community population characteristics . 96 6.1.2 Change in the community institutional arrangements . 99 6.1.3 Change in the community infrastructure and public services . 111 6.2 Social impacts on the household level . 118 6.2.1 Impacts on households and families . 118 6.2.2 Impacts on individuals . 131 7 DIAGNOSIS: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION . 145 7.1 General remark . 145 7.2 The de facto impacts of the NFPP on local communities and households . 145 7.2.1 The social change processes in the local community . 145 7.2.2 Human impacts on the local households . 149 7.3 External and internal factors influencing the extent of impact results. 152 7.3.1 Introduction . 152 7.3.2 The external factors at community level . 152 7.3.3 The internal factors at household and individual level . 154 7.4 Potential impacts of the NFPP on the local community and households. 154 7.5 Dynamics of de facto and potential impacts, local strategies and influence factors 155 8 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS . 157 8.1 General remarks . 157 8.2 Recapitulation of major findings and conclusions . 157 8.3 Scope and limitations of the empirical study . 158 8.4 Recommendation for future policy implementation . 160 8.5 Relationship between theory and findings . 163 8.6 A critical review of methodology and implications for SIA research . 165 REFERENCES . 168 APPENDICES . 179 Appendix 1: Some data and background information available in literature . 180 Appendix 2: Supplementary material and material information used in research . 195 Appendix 3: Questionnaires used in the field surveys . 203 Appendix 4: Part of the data collected in the field . 212 Appendix 5: Photos in the fields . 234

Problem setting. The development of modern professional public administration in the EU began with simple but strategic tasks, such as ensuring the stability of public authority and regulating basic social processes. Further differentiation has led to tasks of the social service provision of public concern to clients, prevention and assistance to people in social and other risks (poverty, unemployment, illness, etc.), that is, creating an effective social work system.Recent research and publications analysis. Problems of public administration reform were investigated by foreign scientists: I. Banks, M. Buser, T. Berzel, P. Birkinshaw, G. Bouckaert, R. Foster, L. Fuller, T. Gabler, J. Ziller, M. Clark, J. Clayton, H. Margets, O. Mayers, S. Montin, M. Porter, F. Holger, K. Hood, W. Weiss, F. Schnapp, J. Schumpeter and others. Among domestic scientists should be distinguished G. Androshchuk, O. Bandurka, Y. Bytiak, B. Beschasnyi, M. Hnydiuk, O. Vlasenko, V. Yevdokimenko, L. Melnichuk, Y. Mykhailuk, I. Kolosovska, E. Legeza, M. Pukhtynskyi, G. Pisarenko, V. Tymoshchuk, H. Khachaturian and others.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Despite the considerable number of scientific works, the study of the of the European countries' experience on the outlined issues, as well as the aspects of theoretical and practical instruments of public administration of the social work system, is of particular importance. The purpose of the article is to analyze and identify the results of the impact of the latest of public administration concepts in EU countries on the development of social work system and identify positive practices for further implementation in the national reform of public administration in the social sphere.Paper main body. The European model of deinstitutionalization (DI) of the system of social work and support for vulnerable groups is considered to be the most balanced and effective today, especially in the first place, with orphaned children and children deprived of parental care. The development of public administration and the improvement of its mechanisms: legal, socio-economic, organizational, informational and others contributed to the development of this model. It is public administration that has played a dominant role in reforming the social work system with families with children.At the same time, social policy measures, based on the theory of the state welfare, that is, creating favorable, equal living conditions, ensuring social justice for all segments of the population were implemented at the state, regional and local levels.Simultaneously application of innovative management practices and standard procedures in public administration challenges the value of social work, transferring social services it into more regulatory practices.Therefore, modern European society wants to reduce its influence in the social sphere under the pretext of guaranteeing more individuality and self-determination to citizens. In addition, the modern state promises to keep state responsibility as the lowest, as well as to develop new forms of distribution of social services in the context of NPM – New Public Management philosophy.The author analyzes the dissemination of neoliberal political beliefs and principles of the New Public Management (NPM) in European countries from the early 1980s and up to the present day, which has significantly influenced the institutional and operational environment in the provision of social services.For social work, a new political strategy may be a growing danger. Namely, the term "social work" can be replaced by the term "social services". The European trend in this direction is clearly traced and leads to many formulations of "Service Principles" and "Service Standards" (for example, in the UK, Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc.). This can cause social work to lose its political and critical function and get positive focus in return.Thus, public and social service institutions, stimulated by the liberalization of the EU market, have been radically restructured through the corporatization, outsourcing and privatization of service provision.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Therefore, New Public Management (NPM) concept implies decentralization of public administration, in order to modernize public administration of the social work system in Ukraine, it would be positive to use certain elements: modern information technologies, social partnership principles, methods and tools of the NPM concepts. The blind copying of European public administration reforms in the field of social services should be avoided now.Thus, the organic introduction of market-based methods and principles of appropriate management has led to the definition of the main directions of adaptation to the current conditions of the existing public administration systems in the leading EU countries. It is about informatization, debureaucratization, decentralization, deconcentration (outsourcing), privatization and introduction of economic mechanisms of regulation of administrative processes and service administration, which can be introduced in the reform of the public administration of the social work system in Ukrainian society. ; Розглянуто досвід та інноваційні методи управління і стандартні процедури вдержавному управлінні країн Європейського Союзу та їх вплив на ефективність надання соціальних послуг. Зроблено аналіз розповсюдження неоліберальних політичних переконань та принципів нового державного управління (далі – NPM) у європейських країнах із початку 80-х рр. ХХ ст. і до сьогодні, що суттєво вплинуло на існуючу систему соціальної роботи. Виокремлено дієві інструменти: інформатизація, дебюрократизація, децентралізація, деінституціалізація, деконцентрація (аутсорсинг), приватизація та запровадження економічних механізмів регулювання управлінських процесів і сервісне адміністрування, які можна впровадити у реформування державного управління системою соціальної роботи в українському суспільстві.

Problem setting. The development of modern professional public administration in the EU began with simple but strategic tasks, such as ensuring the stability of public authority and regulating basic social processes. Further differentiation has led to tasks of the social service provision of public concern to clients, prevention and assistance to people in social and other risks (poverty, unemployment, illness, etc.), that is, creating an effective social work system.Recent research and publications analysis. Problems of public administration reform were investigated by foreign scientists: I. Banks, M. Buser, T. Berzel, P. Birkinshaw, G. Bouckaert, R. Foster, L. Fuller, T. Gabler, J. Ziller, M. Clark, J. Clayton, H. Margets, O. Mayers, S. Montin, M. Porter, F. Holger, K. Hood, W. Weiss, F. Schnapp, J. Schumpeter and others. Among domestic scientists should be distinguished G. Androshchuk, O. Bandurka, Y. Bytiak, B. Beschasnyi, M. Hnydiuk, O. Vlasenko, V. Yevdokimenko, L. Melnichuk, Y. Mykhailuk, I. Kolosovska, E. Legeza, M. Pukhtynskyi, G. Pisarenko, V. Tymoshchuk, H. Khachaturian and others.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Despite the considerable number of scientific works, the study of the of the European countries' experience on the outlined issues, as well as the aspects of theoretical and practical instruments of public administration of the social work system, is of particular importance. The purpose of the article is to analyze and identify the results of the impact of the latest of public administration concepts in EU countries on the development of social work system and identify positive practices for further implementation in the national reform of public administration in the social sphere.Paper main body. The European model of deinstitutionalization (DI) of the system of social work and support for vulnerable groups is considered to be the most balanced and effective today, especially in the first place, with orphaned children and children deprived of parental care. The development of public administration and the improvement of its mechanisms: legal, socio-economic, organizational, informational and others contributed to the development of this model. It is public administration that has played a dominant role in reforming the social work system with families with children.At the same time, social policy measures, based on the theory of the state welfare, that is, creating favorable, equal living conditions, ensuring social justice for all segments of the population were implemented at the state, regional and local levels.Simultaneously application of innovative management practices and standard procedures in public administration challenges the value of social work, transferring social services it into more regulatory practices.Therefore, modern European society wants to reduce its influence in the social sphere under the pretext of guaranteeing more individuality and self-determination to citizens. In addition, the modern state promises to keep state responsibility as the lowest, as well as to develop new forms of distribution of social services in the context of NPM – New Public Management philosophy.The author analyzes the dissemination of neoliberal political beliefs and principles of the New Public Management (NPM) in European countries from the early 1980s and up to the present day, which has significantly influenced the institutional and operational environment in the provision of social services.For social work, a new political strategy may be a growing danger. Namely, the term "social work" can be replaced by the term "social services". The European trend in this direction is clearly traced and leads to many formulations of "Service Principles" and "Service Standards" (for example, in the UK, Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc.). This can cause social work to lose its political and critical function and get positive focus in return.Thus, public and social service institutions, stimulated by the liberalization of the EU market, have been radically restructured through the corporatization, outsourcing and privatization of service provision.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further studies. Therefore, New Public Management (NPM) concept implies decentralization of public administration, in order to modernize public administration of the social work system in Ukraine, it would be positive to use certain elements: modern information technologies, social partnership principles, methods and tools of the NPM concepts. The blind copying of European public administration reforms in the field of social services should be avoided now.Thus, the organic introduction of market-based methods and principles of appropriate management has led to the definition of the main directions of adaptation to the current conditions of the existing public administration systems in the leading EU countries. It is about informatization, debureaucratization, decentralization, deconcentration (outsourcing), privatization and introduction of economic mechanisms of regulation of administrative processes and service administration, which can be introduced in the reform of the public administration of the social work system in Ukrainian society. ; Розглянуто досвід та інноваційні методи управління і стандартні процедури вдержавному управлінні країн Європейського Союзу та їх вплив на ефективність надання соціальних послуг. Зроблено аналіз розповсюдження неоліберальних політичних переконань та принципів нового державного управління (далі – NPM) у європейських країнах із початку 80-х рр. ХХ ст. і до сьогодні, що суттєво вплинуло на існуючу систему соціальної роботи. Виокремлено дієві інструменти: інформатизація, дебюрократизація, децентралізація, деінституціалізація, деконцентрація (аутсорсинг), приватизація та запровадження економічних механізмів регулювання управлінських процесів і сервісне адміністрування, які можна впровадити у реформування державного управління системою соціальної роботи в українському суспільстві.

Seeds are central to agrobiodiversity, and farmers have historically bred a rich array of crop seeds to sustain rural and urban communities. Over the past 150 years, however, trajectories in macroeconomic development, science and research, and agricultural policy have dovetailed with environmental changes to diminish seed diversity and the living agricultures it supports. While genetic erosion has emerged as a global challenge, access to that diversity has also come into stark relief: Industry consolidation, the development of transgenic crops, and intellectual property rights are now seen as constraints on free exchange of seeds and the ability of farmers and breeders to adapt and breed resilient crop cultivars. How can seed diversity – and access to it – be expanded once more?To address this question, my dissertation develops a 'political ecology of seeds.' Building on the foundational account of seed primitive accumulation by Kloppenburg (1988), I examine several dimensions left underexplored in this and other accounts: new, countervailing forces of repossession working against primitive accumulation; the knowledge politics of seed production and of seed science; and the co-production of institutions, policies, discourse, and knowledge together. Using a constructivist theoretical framework, my project explores how knowledge politics and coproduction are instrumental in carving out new – and retracing old – territories for seed enclosures in the contemporary era. By examining how often-invisible discourses and practices underpin seed dispossession, we are better equipped to organize alternatives – not only to reject colonial and capitalist habits of thought/practice, but to revitalize communal, ethical, and economic strategies of repossession. My thesis includes three core papers, alongside introduction, theory, and conclusion chapters. In the first paper, I critically interrogate meanings of 'diversity' via rivaling discourses of seed 'loss' and 'persistence' visible in the scientific, international policy, and farmer movement literatures over 40-plus years. On one hand, numerous studies and stories indicate that crop genetic diversity is rapidly eroding worldwide. On the other hand, much data suggests that far from disappearing, seed diversity persists – resisting homogenizing trends within industrial capitalism. Yet in lieu of binary analyses, a more accurate accounting, I argue, can come from investigating the epistemic practices and politics of agrobiodiversity: what is known – recognized, measured, valued – as being lost or maintained. Evaluating historical data on farmer naming systems along with newer methods of genomic and biochemical analysis, I develop a multi-dimensional framework for understanding seed diversity.My second paper considers crop wild relatives (CWR) as a fast-emerging site for new seed primitive accumulation. Faced with imminent climate change, scientists and agribusinesses are vying to develop crops that can survive drought, floods, and shifting pest regimes. CWR offer breeders the allure of 'climate-hardy traits,' infusing genomes of modern crops with 'lost' genetic variety. Paradoxically, wild relatives themselves are endangered, propelling CWR into the limelight as an international conservation and food-security priority. I examine accumulation processes along two fronts: conservation policies, where in situ approaches, typically regarded as empowering alternatives to ex situ, instead may support appropriation; and breeding and biotechnology research, which produces new use values for CWR while profoundly shaping upstream conservation priorities.My third and final paper explores the US-based Open Source Seed Initiative as one example of repossession. OSSI has created an alternative to intellectual property rights with a 'protected commons' for seed. Commons scholarship has contributed much on theories of institutional governance. But, I argue, attending to the practice of 'commoning' helps illuminate a more complex triad: communities who manage shared resources according to negotiated social protocols. Employing the metaphor of 'beating the bounds' – a feudal practice of contesting enclosures – I ask how OSSI defends the commons in intersecting arenas. First is legal, as OSSI negotiates a move from contract law toward moral economy law. Next is epistemic, as a 'freelance' breeder network revitalizes informal farmer-breeder knowledge, proving less structurally constrained than formal university breeders to lead commoning efforts. Third is seed sovereignty, as OSSI engages with global South movements whose diverse cosmovisions and seed cultures pose new challenges for constructing transnational commons. I conclude by using spatial 'centricity' to conceptualize power relations in seed systems. CWR exemplifies 'ex-situ centric' flows of seed knowledge, power, and value away from local communities to centralized, often distant sites of recognizing and classifying diversity. Expertise is conferred primarily upon those scientists and industrialists who can produce commodity goods. By contrast, OSSI mobilizes breeder and farmer knowledge in a countervailing, 'in-situ centric' direction: towards local spaces, towards legitimizing farmer-breeders as knowledge makers. This movement, I conclude, is not merely an opposite force: it triangulates across three bases of 'emancipatory' action at the heart of agroecology, food sovereignty and commoning. Uniting politics of recognition (race, gender, identity), politics of redistribution (class and inequality), and politics of representation (democracy and citizenship), the question of seed diversity and access, I suggest, is ultimately a political one. It calls for recognizing diverse knowledge-makers, redistributing genetic resources as commons, de-centralizing seed reproduction to suit heterogenous agroecologies, and addressing base inequalities in power that drive dispossession.

The financial management within an entity is linked to the process of planning, organization, optimization, execution and control of the activities of the financial area, it constitutes the main source of information for the decision making of the highest authority and executives of the organization; this variable has been the subject of analysis to determine the degree of security that internal controls have in government entities in the payments that are made; putting as a unit of analysis the case of "Peculate for abuse of public or private assets or money by virtue of the position of the public servant" occurred in the Municipal Autonomous Decentralized Government of the Riobamba Canton (GADMCR), where it can be evidenced that although the internal controls are regulated prior to payment, it was not a guarantee for compliance by the administrators of the keys and users of accessibility to the Interbank Payment System, allowing transfers to natural persons to be made, without there being any delivery of goods or consideration of services. This work collects in a documented way the vulnerabilities of the 17721-2015-0596 process, from the abductive perspective between: (a) Theory: fraudulent action on the part of a public servant, who in his benefit or in favor of a third party appropriated undue resources public, conceptualization that is close to that stipulated in Article 278 of the Comprehensive Criminal Organic Code, (b) Research: with the analysis of the facts presented within the analyzed case; and, (c) Practice: acts that were judged and sentenced by the organs of the Judicial Function, establishing penalties and the amount of the economic damage caused, which, to date have not been recovered or managed by the victim of the crime, favoring budget execution due to lack of liquidity. The issue related to the repair of the damage has not been followed, since the main focus has been the determination of the crime of embezzlement and the economic damage, reducing the interest that this causes. Concluding that the misappropriation of public resources (embezzlement) affects the financial management of the Municipal GADs, limiting compliance with the institutional planning and affecting the principles and / or primary duties of the State for the lack of execution of projects. investment, such as water, education, health and others, according to the purposes and competences granted for these levels of government, as was the case of the GADMCR in fiscal year 2013. ; La gestión financiera dentro de una entidad, está ligada al proceso de planificación, organización, optimización, ejecución y control de las actividades del área financiera, constituye la fuente de información principal para la toma de decisiones de la máxima autoridad y directivos de la organización; esta variable ha sido motivo de análisis para determinar el grado de seguridad que tienen los controles internos en las entidades gubernamentales en los pagos que se realizan; poniendo como unidad de análisis el caso de "Peculado por abusos de bienes o dineros públicos o privados en virtud por razón del cargo del servidor público" ocurrido en el Gobierno Autónomo Descentralizado Municipal del Cantón Riobamba (GADMCR), donde se puede evidenciar que a pesar que se encuentran normados los controles internos previo al pago, no fue una garantía para el cumplimiento por parte de los administradores de las claves y usuarios de accesibilidad al Sistema de Pagos Interbancarios, permitiendo que se efectúen transferencias a personas naturales, sin que exista entrega de bienes o contraprestaciones de servicios. Este trabajo recoge en forma documentada las vulnerabilidades del proceso 17721-2015-0596, desde la perspectiva abductiva entre: (a) Teoría: actuación dolosa por parte de un servidor público, quien en su beneficio o a favor de un tercero se apropió indebidamente de recursos públicos, conceptualización que es cercana a lo estipulado en el artículo 278 del Código Orgánico Integral Penal, (b) Investigación: con el análisis de los hechos presentados dentro del caso analizado; y, (c) Práctica: actos que fueron juzgados y sentenciados por parte de los organismos de la Función Judicial, estableciéndose penas y el monto del perjuicio económico causado, que, hasta la fecha no han sido recuperados ni gestionados por parte de la víctima del delito, propiciándose afectación en la ejecución presupuestaria por la falta de liquidez. El tema relacionado a la reparación del daño no ha sido motivo de seguimiento, ya que el enfoque principal ha sido la determinación del delito de peculado y el perjuicio económico, restándole interés a la consecuencia que este ocasiona. Concluyéndose que la apropiación indebida de recursos públicos (peculado) repercute sobre la gestión financiera de los GADs Municipales, limitando a que se cumpla con la planificación institucional y se afecten los principios y/o deberes primordiales del Estado por la falta de ejecución de proyectos de inversión, como es el agua, la educación, la salud y otros, de acuerdo a los fines y competencias otorgadas para estos niveles de gobierno, como fue el caso del GADMCR en el ejercicio fiscal 2013.

International audience ; This thesis focuses on China's hybrid lobbying strategies (economic and cultural, hard and soft power) in the sectors of media and telecommunication in Africa, particularly in Kenya and South Africa. It intends to analyse changing Chinese soft power influence strategies in the digital and social media age. I rely on different perspectives and theoretical approaches: public policies cognitive analysis, media framing effects on political debates, critical analysis of the uses of information and communication tools in different socio- historical backgrounds, prospective analysis of PR techniques evolution (Davidson, 2016; Olsson & Eriksson, 2016; Yeomans, 2016; Kantola, 2016; Bernays, 2013; Berg, 2009). We mean to examine the innovative way in which the Chinese "party-state" spreads a certain vision of its culture and ideology on the African continent in order to promote its economic interest. This grass-roots lobbying (Barnes & Balnave, 2015; Schneider, 2015; Jalali, 2013; Reddick & Norris, 2013) can be described accurately with the metaphor of the Trojan horse.As the essential destination of the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", the official ways to name Chinese international relations' strategy, Kenya has become a hub for China. China's cultural institutions opened their first African Confucius Institute there. Being one of the members of BRICS, South Africa also grew into the business centre of China in Africa. Many important branches of Chinese Telecom companies are based in the country. It seems that these institutions, no matter public or private, were eventually being an essential channel for China's local PR actions.As the core channels of "soft power", culture and knowledge encapsulate values, ideologies and beliefs (Desmoulins & Huang, 2017; Gupta, 2013; Martel, 2013; DeLisle, 2010; Courmont, 2009; Bläser, 2005; Keohane, Jr, & Keohane, 1998; Nye, 2006, 2004, 1991). China's cultural associations, training institutes, humanitarian foundations, companies as well as government's propaganda are mutually reinforced and seem to be aimed to enhance China's cultural, political and economic influence spheres indifferently.This could not be possible without a high level of centralisation and of governmental control, pervasive media propaganda and well-funded and staffed information censorship institutions. As a matter of fact, China remains a one-party state, its constitution determines the Communist Party of China (CCP) as China's sole ruling party, although Chinese economic development after the reform and opening up of 1978 shows the characteristics of capitalism. Most Chinese companies are owned by the state. Furthermore, even through Chinese Constitution protects the freedom of speech and of the press (see Chapter 2, Article 35), the status of Chinese press is extraordinary and difficult to tackle from a western viewpoint. In China, media plays as the spokesman filtering all negative news and led by the CPC, which means it defends politically governmental issues and positions, even participates in all political propaganda.One hypothesis is that since China is the birthplace of the Confucian culture and since Chinese people see themselves as the continuator of Confucianism, interests' groups PR strategies rely on different action lever than in Western Europe. Common interests are more valued than individual interests, political authority is more important than individual freedoms, also social responsibility wins over individual rights (Chu, 2016, p. 198; Huntington, 1997, p. 10). Functioning as the vanguard of Chinese image's promotion, all people are considered as the spokesman of the CPC, no matter whether they are working for a media company, a cultural public agency or the diplomatic corps. They carry out a gatekeeping process (Brown, 1979, p. 595; Lewin, 1997) to promote CPC ideas and to promote the development in Africa of a kind of socialism that presents Chinese genuine characteristics.The thesis examines the current logic of China's and China's companies' soft power strategies, and the related PR actions. The main research question is: what is so special with the Chinese soft power strategies (one-party system, censorship, propaganda, state monopolies, centralisation of the decision-making process, economic boost, ecological crisis, millennium Confucian philosophy and appealing non-individualistic culture in a context of capitalist crisis)? How are China's governmental diplomacy and corporate PR strategies conceived, deployed and intertwined? How do second-track diplomacy and PR strategies differ and interact? I chose to adopt a comparative approach (two countries and two sectors of activity). How do these strategies interact with other resources of power in the digital and social media age?A multidimensional theoretical framework was mobilized, I aim to associate different approaches of public relations, lobbying, communication, international relations and foreign policy (political science, political theory). Secondly, fieldworks in Kenya and South Africa will take place in Spring 2018 to interview local residents, such as African branches of Chinese enterprises and media (China Telecom, Huawei, StarTimes, CGTN, CCTV, Xinhua), as well as representatives of Confucius Institutes and China's local embassies. I will also analyse the rhetoric and semiotic of Chinese soft power strategies as it reveals itself on sites, forums, blogs and social media platforms, where PR strategies of China's companies and governmental agencies are revealed.In short, I intend to analyse the institutional, rhetorical and technical innovative strategies deployed by China, its second-rack diplomacy, its soft power strategy (local PR actions and digital grass-roots lobbying). My study encompasses the PR actions of Chinese companies and governmental agencies in Africa by focusing on two sectors (telecoms, media), and two main countries: Kenya and South Africa.

International audience ; This thesis focuses on China's hybrid lobbying strategies (economic and cultural, hard and soft power) in the sectors of media and telecommunication in Africa, particularly in Kenya and South Africa. It intends to analyse changing Chinese soft power influence strategies in the digital and social media age. I rely on different perspectives and theoretical approaches: public policies cognitive analysis, media framing effects on political debates, critical analysis of the uses of information and communication tools in different socio- historical backgrounds, prospective analysis of PR techniques evolution (Davidson, 2016; Olsson & Eriksson, 2016; Yeomans, 2016; Kantola, 2016; Bernays, 2013; Berg, 2009). We mean to examine the innovative way in which the Chinese "party-state" spreads a certain vision of its culture and ideology on the African continent in order to promote its economic interest. This grass-roots lobbying (Barnes & Balnave, 2015; Schneider, 2015; Jalali, 2013; Reddick & Norris, 2013) can be described accurately with the metaphor of the Trojan horse.As the essential destination of the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", the official ways to name Chinese international relations' strategy, Kenya has become a hub for China. China's cultural institutions opened their first African Confucius Institute there. Being one of the members of BRICS, South Africa also grew into the business centre of China in Africa. Many important branches of Chinese Telecom companies are based in the country. It seems that these institutions, no matter public or private, were eventually being an essential channel for China's local PR actions.As the core channels of "soft power", culture and knowledge encapsulate values, ideologies and beliefs (Desmoulins & Huang, 2017; Gupta, 2013; Martel, 2013; DeLisle, 2010; Courmont, 2009; Bläser, 2005; Keohane, Jr, & Keohane, 1998; Nye, 2006, 2004, 1991). China's cultural associations, training institutes, humanitarian foundations, companies as well as government's propaganda are mutually reinforced and seem to be aimed to enhance China's cultural, political and economic influence spheres indifferently.This could not be possible without a high level of centralisation and of governmental control, pervasive media propaganda and well-funded and staffed information censorship institutions. As a matter of fact, China remains a one-party state, its constitution determines the Communist Party of China (CCP) as China's sole ruling party, although Chinese economic development after the reform and opening up of 1978 shows the characteristics of capitalism. Most Chinese companies are owned by the state. Furthermore, even through Chinese Constitution protects the freedom of speech and of the press (see Chapter 2, Article 35), the status of Chinese press is extraordinary and difficult to tackle from a western viewpoint. In China, media plays as the spokesman filtering all negative news and led by the CPC, which means it defends politically governmental issues and positions, even participates in all political propaganda.One hypothesis is that since China is the birthplace of the Confucian culture and since Chinese people see themselves as the continuator of Confucianism, interests' groups PR strategies rely on different action lever than in Western Europe. Common interests are more valued than individual interests, political authority is more important than individual freedoms, also social responsibility wins over individual rights (Chu, 2016, p. 198; Huntington, 1997, p. 10). Functioning as the vanguard of Chinese image's promotion, all people are considered as the spokesman of the CPC, no matter whether they are working for a media company, a cultural public agency or the diplomatic corps. They carry out a gatekeeping process (Brown, 1979, p. 595; Lewin, 1997) to promote CPC ideas and to promote the development in Africa of a kind of socialism that presents Chinese genuine characteristics.The thesis examines the current logic of China's and China's companies' soft power strategies, and the related PR actions. The main research question is: what is so special with the Chinese soft power strategies (one-party system, censorship, propaganda, state monopolies, centralisation of the decision-making process, economic boost, ecological crisis, millennium Confucian philosophy and appealing non-individualistic culture in a context of capitalist crisis)? How are China's governmental diplomacy and corporate PR strategies conceived, deployed and intertwined? How do second-track diplomacy and PR strategies differ and interact? I chose to adopt a comparative approach (two countries and two sectors of activity). How do these strategies interact with other resources of power in the digital and social media age?A multidimensional theoretical framework was mobilized, I aim to associate different approaches of public relations, lobbying, communication, international relations and foreign policy (political science, political theory). Secondly, fieldworks in Kenya and South Africa will take place in Spring 2018 to interview local residents, such as African branches of Chinese enterprises and media (China Telecom, Huawei, StarTimes, CGTN, CCTV, Xinhua), as well as representatives of Confucius Institutes and China's local embassies. I will also analyse the rhetoric and semiotic of Chinese soft power strategies as it reveals itself on sites, forums, blogs and social media platforms, where PR strategies of China's companies and governmental agencies are revealed.In short, I intend to analyse the institutional, rhetorical and technical innovative strategies deployed by China, its second-rack diplomacy, its soft power strategy (local PR actions and digital grass-roots lobbying). My study encompasses the PR actions of Chinese companies and governmental agencies in Africa by focusing on two sectors (telecoms, media), and two main countries: Kenya and South Africa.

International audience ; This thesis focuses on China's hybrid lobbying strategies (economic and cultural, hard and soft power) in the sectors of media and telecommunication in Africa, particularly in Kenya and South Africa. It intends to analyse changing Chinese soft power influence strategies in the digital and social media age. I rely on different perspectives and theoretical approaches: public policies cognitive analysis, media framing effects on political debates, critical analysis of the uses of information and communication tools in different socio- historical backgrounds, prospective analysis of PR techniques evolution (Davidson, 2016; Olsson & Eriksson, 2016; Yeomans, 2016; Kantola, 2016; Bernays, 2013; Berg, 2009). We mean to examine the innovative way in which the Chinese "party-state" spreads a certain vision of its culture and ideology on the African continent in order to promote its economic interest. This grass-roots lobbying (Barnes & Balnave, 2015; Schneider, 2015; Jalali, 2013; Reddick & Norris, 2013) can be described accurately with the metaphor of the Trojan horse.As the essential destination of the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", the official ways to name Chinese international relations' strategy, Kenya has become a hub for China. China's cultural institutions opened their first African Confucius Institute there. Being one of the members of BRICS, South Africa also grew into the business centre of China in Africa. Many important branches of Chinese Telecom companies are based in the country. It seems that these institutions, no matter public or private, were eventually being an essential channel for China's local PR actions.As the core channels of "soft power", culture and knowledge encapsulate values, ideologies and beliefs (Desmoulins & Huang, 2017; Gupta, 2013; Martel, 2013; DeLisle, 2010; Courmont, 2009; Bläser, 2005; Keohane, Jr, & Keohane, 1998; Nye, 2006, 2004, 1991). China's cultural associations, training institutes, humanitarian foundations, companies as well as government's propaganda are mutually reinforced and seem to be aimed to enhance China's cultural, political and economic influence spheres indifferently.This could not be possible without a high level of centralisation and of governmental control, pervasive media propaganda and well-funded and staffed information censorship institutions. As a matter of fact, China remains a one-party state, its constitution determines the Communist Party of China (CCP) as China's sole ruling party, although Chinese economic development after the reform and opening up of 1978 shows the characteristics of capitalism. Most Chinese companies are owned by the state. Furthermore, even through Chinese Constitution protects the freedom of speech and of the press (see Chapter 2, Article 35), the status of Chinese press is extraordinary and difficult to tackle from a western viewpoint. In China, media plays as the spokesman filtering all negative news and led by the CPC, which means it defends politically governmental issues and positions, even participates in all political propaganda.One hypothesis is that since China is the birthplace of the Confucian culture and since Chinese people see themselves as the continuator of Confucianism, interests' groups PR strategies rely on different action lever than in Western Europe. Common interests are more valued than individual interests, political authority is more important than individual freedoms, also social responsibility wins over individual rights (Chu, 2016, p. 198; Huntington, 1997, p. 10). Functioning as the vanguard of Chinese image's promotion, all people are considered as the spokesman of the CPC, no matter whether they are working for a media company, a cultural public agency or the diplomatic corps. They carry out a gatekeeping process (Brown, 1979, p. 595; Lewin, 1997) to promote CPC ideas and to promote the development in Africa of a kind of socialism that presents Chinese genuine characteristics.The thesis examines the current logic of China's and China's companies' soft power strategies, and the related PR actions. The main research question is: what is so special with the Chinese soft power strategies (one-party system, censorship, propaganda, state monopolies, centralisation of the decision-making process, economic boost, ecological crisis, millennium Confucian philosophy and appealing non-individualistic culture in a context of capitalist crisis)? How are China's governmental diplomacy and corporate PR strategies conceived, deployed and intertwined? How do second-track diplomacy and PR strategies differ and interact? I chose to adopt a comparative approach (two countries and two sectors of activity). How do these strategies interact with other resources of power in the digital and social media age?A multidimensional theoretical framework was mobilized, I aim to associate different approaches of public relations, lobbying, communication, international relations and foreign policy (political science, political theory). Secondly, fieldworks in Kenya and South Africa will take place in Spring 2018 to interview local residents, such as African branches of Chinese enterprises and media (China Telecom, Huawei, StarTimes, CGTN, CCTV, Xinhua), as well as representatives of Confucius Institutes and China's local embassies. I will also analyse the rhetoric and semiotic of Chinese soft power strategies as it reveals itself on sites, forums, blogs and social media platforms, where PR strategies of China's companies and governmental agencies are revealed.In short, I intend to analyse the institutional, rhetorical and technical innovative strategies deployed by China, its second-rack diplomacy, its soft power strategy (local PR actions and digital grass-roots lobbying). My study encompasses the PR actions of Chinese companies and governmental agencies in Africa by focusing on two sectors (telecoms, media), and two main countries: Kenya and South Africa.