Social and Political Sciences, School of
Established in 2001, the School brings together core social scientific disciplines to promote the critical understanding of social and political processes and the development of effective policy and practice through a wide range of teaching and research programmes. The School was formed from the departments (now subject groups) of Politics, Social Anthropology, Social Policy and Sociology; the Graduate School of Social and Political Studies; the Centres of African, Canadian and South Asian Studies; the Science Studies Unit, the Research Centre in Social Sciences and the Institute of Governance. It has recently been joined by Social Work, and now forms part of the College of Humanities and Social Science.
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Recent Submissions
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Military and health innovations in clandestine warfare settings. Technical specialization and collective resourcefulness in the FARC-EP
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)There has been a rapid recent growth of academic interest in previously neglected processes of innovation at the margins, including contexts of illegality. These illegal margins represent remarkable breeding grounds ... -
“They have many chains to bind us”: state formation, foreign policy and the colonial pact in Mali, c.1958-2020
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis explores the formation and evolution of the Malian state since independence through its interaction with the French post-colonial settlement. It draws on more than 10,000 pages of diplomatic archival documents ... -
How political leaders shape international rivalries: a psychological study of resilience and variability in Chilean-Bolivian and Chilean-Peruvian relations
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This research seeks to set out an understanding of the life-cycle of interstate rivalries. Specifically, it looks at the Chilean-Peruvian and Chilean-Bolivian rivalries, focusing on decision-makers' beliefs and emotions ... -
Mixed methods investigation of the meanings of one inequality indicator (the Japanese Small Area Deprivation Index) for researching social inequalities in health in the Soma Region of Fukushima, Japan
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)In the process of researching social inequalities in health, certain indicators (e.g. socioeconomic position; small area deprivation) are now widely used across many countries. However, there has been limited research ... -
Subalternity and counter-revolution: the social drivers of the Egyptian state transformation
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)Many scholarly works address extensively the causes of revolution, but surprisingly little work has been done to develop a theory on counter-revolution. Generally, counter-revolution has been understood simply as the ... -
Distributed Infrastructuring and Innovation: an ethnographic enquiry into collaborative modes of work in an internet of things ecosystem
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)Emerging low-power wireless networks are being used for a range of data collection systems such as asset tracking, environmental monitoring, smart agriculture and smart city facilities. The relatively low costs of hardware ... -
Politics of intersectional practice: representation, coalition and solidarity
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis makes both an empirical and theoretical contribution to the study of intersectionality’s operationalisation. While race, class, gender and gender identity, disability status, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ... -
Making mothers, making fathers: the transition to parenthood in Edinburgh
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis investigates women and men’s experiences of the transition to parenthood in Edinburgh, UK, in the context of changing laws on parental leave and notions of ‘new fatherhood.’ In the UK, policies and care in ... -
Rhetoric, ritual and reality: understanding the relationship between ex-combatants and the TRC in Sierra Leone
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis explores the relationship between ex-combatants and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sierra Leone. It fills important empirical and conceptual lacunae in foregrounding the transitional justice ... -
Helping the 'problem child' become loveable again? A discourse analysis on childhood ADHD in Switzerland and implications for social work
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)Diagnoses and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children have seen significant increases in many parts of the world in the past two decades. However, there is a paucity of research on how ... -
Pan-Africanism versus partnership: African decolonisation in Southern Rhodesian politics, ca. 1950-1963
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis explores the process by which the decolonisation of Africa in the 1950s and early 1960s shaped the politics of Southern Rhodesia. Focusing on the era in which that colony was a member of the Federation of ... -
Emergent powers in the field of peacebuilding: modalities, interactions and impact of Indian and Chinese engagement in the peace processes of Nepal and Myanmar
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)The global emergence of countries like India and China has given rise to questions about how these emergent powers will engage with the various manifestations of the West-led liberal world order, including fields of ... -
Rolling changes in Russian foreign policy: divergent reactions to upheavals in the post-Soviet space and national role conceptions
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)Despite the increased interest in the analysis of Russian foreign policy (RFP), current approaches leave much unexplained. Many existing studies use either macro-theoretical approaches or are very empirical. Furthermore, ... -
Follow the bottle: PET recycling economy and waste picker empowerment in Brazil
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis seeks to understand and problematise waste pickers’ underprivileged socioeconomic condition in Brazil from the perspective of their active participation in the recycling economy. It uses a Cultural Political ... -
Competition, masculinities, and peacekeeping: constructions of Soviet nuclear identity and policy from Stalin to Gorbachev
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-31)This thesis examines the most powerful constructions of Soviet nuclear identity at three stages of nuclear decision-making (acquisition, the arms race, disarmament) throughout the course of the Cold War between the Soviet ... -
OTC commodity derivative rulemaking at the CFTC, 2010-2016: a cultural political economy approach
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-29)Rulemaking undertaken by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) between 2010 and 2016 for the regulation of over-the-counter (OTC) commodity derivatives comprised an essential component in the implementation of ... -
Contending with space and time: the navigation of class, marriage, and identity by Chinese temporary migrants in the UK
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-22)The dominant discourses on young Chinese middle-class transnational migration, especially in the form of educational migration to developed western countries, view such movement as part of personal and family strategies ... -
Gendering self-reliance: constructing the ideal refugee wo/man within livelihoods support for displaced Syrians in Turkey
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-16)My thesis sets out to explore how self-reliance is gendered within global refugee support. It contributes to scholarship on refugee self-reliance by pointing to gendered components of the concept itself, and analysing it ... -
Fixing development: breakdown, repair and disposal in Kenya's off-grid solar market
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-06)The development project is a repair project. Schemes and initiatives to improve the human condition are borne from the belief that there is something broken in the status quo that we must fix. Small solar-powered products ... -
Interplay of authority and expertise in online self-improvement communities
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-06)In online environments, users who wish to learn anything face several problems. Other users are usually anonymous or pseudonymous, information is plentiful and its quality variable, and it can be difficult to discern ...
