title: Federalism and resource conflict: Assessing the impact of federalism in curbing conflict over petroleum resource revenues - A case study of Nigeria and Canada

authors: Kalu, John Otisi

subjects: Federalism

abstract: This thesis focuses on lingering conflict over natural resource revenues which has ravaged many countries. The problem has no doubt attracted the attention of researchers who have approached it, mostly, from the angle of how natural resources lead to violent and armed conflict; impact of natural resource conflict on economic growth; causes and the factors that increase the intensity of the conflict. Regrettably, the preoccupation of researches on those other aspects of resource conflict as mentioned, results in the unfortunate dearth of research that focus on charting out the means to bring about solutions to the problem. This study therefore argues that genuine solution to resource conflict can come from a specific design of the political institution of government—precisely, the institutionalization of federalism in the given country. 
However, the case of the Nigerian federation suggests the contrary, with conflict over resource revenues getting increasingly strident. It was therefore deemed vital to undertake a comparative case study of the problem in Nigeria and another federal country – Canada, in order to ascertain the extent to which federalism can contribute to resolve resource conflict. In-depth interviews were conducted with selected respondents in Nigeria and Canada to complement the secondary data from extant literature. The ‘method of difference’ was employed in the analysis of data which aided the identification of significant differences that account for variations in the manifestation of conflict over resource revenues across the countries. 
After the analysis, this study makes two major discoveries that contribute to the existing scholarship on the subject as follows. Firstly, findings from the case of Nigeria reveal that factors inhibiting federalism in mitigating resource conflict are linked primarily to a huge influence of oil and gas on the economy, or over dependence on the resource to drive the economy. The research illustrates clearly how this factor leads to excessive fiscal centralization, which undermines subnational fiscal autonomy, heightens poverty, enables ambiguous design of the fiscal constitution, and facilitates widespread corruption and non-adherence to the rule of law; all of which enhances the severity of resource conflict. Secondly, findings from the Canadian case illustrate how the reinforcement of sub-national fiscal autonomy, which is the hallmark of federalism, counteracts the above mentioned effects of over dependence on petroleum resources. This consequently reduces the violent manifestation of resource conflict. 
With some illustrative diagrams built to support arguments, the study concludes that the institution of federalism provides an effective means through which resource conflict can be addressed. This study provides lessons that would no doubt be useful to, not only Nigeria and Canada but also, many other natural resource endowed countries that are still battling problems of resource revenue dispositions. More so, the analysis in this thesis should be of interest to scholars of conflict and resource governance in deeply divided societies, students of federalism and multilevel governance, as well as policy makers and analysts interested in the facilitation of unity through diversity in their respective countries of focus.

text: Federalism and resource conflict: Assessing the impact of federalism in curbing conflict over petroleum resource revenues - A case study of Nigeria and Canada This thesis focuses on lingering conflict over natural resource revenues which has ravaged many countries. The problem has no doubt attracted the attention of researchers who have approached it, mostly, from the angle of how natural resources lead to violent and armed conflict; impact of natural resource conflict on economic growth; causes and the factors that increase the intensity of the conflict. Regrettably, the preoccupation of researches on those other aspects of resource conflict as mentioned, results in the unfortunate dearth of research that focus on charting out the means to bring about solutions to the problem. This study therefore argues that genuine solution to resource conflict can come from a specific design of the political institution of government—precisely, the institutionalization of federalism in the given country. 
However, the case of the Nigerian federation suggests the contrary, with conflict over resource revenues getting increasingly strident. It was therefore deemed vital to undertake a comparative case study of the problem in Nigeria and another federal country – Canada, in order to ascertain the extent to which federalism can contribute to resolve resource conflict. In-depth interviews were conducted with selected respondents in Nigeria and Canada to complement the secondary data from extant literature. The ‘method of difference’ was employed in the analysis of data which aided the identification of significant differences that account for variations in the manifestation of conflict over resource revenues across the countries. 
After the analysis, this study makes two major discoveries that contribute to the existing scholarship on the subject as follows. Firstly, findings from the case of Nigeria reveal that factors inhibiting federalism in mitigating resource conflict are linked primarily to a huge influence of oil and gas on the economy, or over dependence on the resource to drive the economy. The research illustrates clearly how this factor leads to excessive fiscal centralization, which undermines subnational fiscal autonomy, heightens poverty, enables ambiguous design of the fiscal constitution, and facilitates widespread corruption and non-adherence to the rule of law; all of which enhances the severity of resource conflict. Secondly, findings from the Canadian case illustrate how the reinforcement of sub-national fiscal autonomy, which is the hallmark of federalism, counteracts the above mentioned effects of over dependence on petroleum resources. This consequently reduces the violent manifestation of resource conflict. 
With some illustrative diagrams built to support arguments, the study concludes that the institution of federalism provides an effective means through which resource conflict can be addressed. This study provides lessons that would no doubt be useful to, not only Nigeria and Canada but also, many other natural resource endowed countries that are still battling problems of resource revenue dispositions. More so, the analysis in this thesis should be of interest to scholars of conflict and resource governance in deeply divided societies, students of federalism and multilevel governance, as well as policy makers and analysts interested in the facilitation of unity through diversity in their respective countries of focus.

year: 2016

title: Habituation and Dishabituation of Physical Activity

authors: Crawford, Demelza

subjects: habituation

abstract: Three experiments with single subject research designs were conducted to see whether habituation occurred as human participants completed physical activity. Experiment 1 had an arrangement where participant’s rates of stationary cycling were recorded throughout 20 minute sessions. Instead of habituation, stationary cycling rates increased over time, likely to be due to a rule that controlled behaviour derived from previous reinforced responding in the same setting as the experimental context. Experiment 2 was arranged similarly to Experiment 1 with an added concurrent task to disrupt the behaviour chain causing the rule-governed behaviour seen in Experiment 1. Despite this concurrent task, rates of stationary cycling again increased due to rule-governed behaviour. Experiment 3 had stationary cycling rates associated with a salient reinforcer that could lose its effectiveness to reinforce over time and thus habituate. Instead, Experiment 3 resulted in stable rates of stationary cycling consistent with task adherence, a rule-governed behaviour. With the failure of habituation to predict the results of this study, they are instead discussed from the more applicable perspective of motivating operations.

text: Habituation and Dishabituation of Physical Activity Three experiments with single subject research designs were conducted to see whether habituation occurred as human participants completed physical activity. Experiment 1 had an arrangement where participant’s rates of stationary cycling were recorded throughout 20 minute sessions. Instead of habituation, stationary cycling rates increased over time, likely to be due to a rule that controlled behaviour derived from previous reinforced responding in the same setting as the experimental context. Experiment 2 was arranged similarly to Experiment 1 with an added concurrent task to disrupt the behaviour chain causing the rule-governed behaviour seen in Experiment 1. Despite this concurrent task, rates of stationary cycling again increased due to rule-governed behaviour. Experiment 3 had stationary cycling rates associated with a salient reinforcer that could lose its effectiveness to reinforce over time and thus habituate. Instead, Experiment 3 resulted in stable rates of stationary cycling consistent with task adherence, a rule-governed behaviour. With the failure of habituation to predict the results of this study, they are instead discussed from the more applicable perspective of motivating operations.

year: 2015

title: Street-level bureaucracy and occupational therapy practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. A genealogical critique.

authors: Silcock, Elizabeth Mary

subjects: power

abstract: As a human science that is also part of administering and supporting bureaucracy, occupational therapy functions in multi-layered networks of power  that support many different social structures. Occupational therapists’ work often involves operationalising health, education and social services at the street-level, positioning them between the aspirations of both policy and social activism and material life outcomes. Through a genealogical critique, this thesis problematises the practice of occupational therapy through a Foucauldian lens that views everything as dangerous. By viewing occupational therapy practice as dangerous, the power relations at the street-level of the mundane and taken-for-granted have been problematised as part of much larger social structures of power and discourse. 
Several Foucauldian tools were deployed in order to ensure that a focus on occupational therapy practices was maintained; three distinct research methods were utilised to access a range of heterogeneous genealogical information.  Firstly, an historical archival analysis of the four iterations of the Competencies for Registration for occupational therapists document (1990 to the current day) produced by the regulatory authority, the Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand, was carried out.  Secondly, practice observations of occupational therapists working in different practice settings were analysed as three individual case studies. Concurrently with these two methods, a critical action method using a research blog was developed to create a medium for public discussion of practice through an open engagement with the profession. The combination of these three methods enabled access to a range of elements for analysis.  Many of these elements inter-linked, overlapped and connected to historically contingent networks of dominant power that have formed through the processes of colonisation, the establishment of the health system and normalised medical practices, and economic forms of governance. The nuances of how occupational therapy is practised at the street-level offered opportunities to contest the dominance of these networks. In all three case studies there was an unspoken understanding and a normalisation of materiality as an accepted and significant element of how the profession practised.  The material regimes of knowledge and material practices in these unspoken norms were highly productive and able to contest other lines of power.  Along with this alternate network of power, the most recent version of the Competencies for Registration offers a further opportunity for occupational therapists to contest dominant power relations in a way that could capitalise on the secure position the profession has developed through its material network of power.  Opportunities for alternate pathways of practice which privilege Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi are a possibility in the legally sanctioned Competencies. The close connection of occupational therapy practices to real life material outcomes for other people, position the street-level doing of occupational therapists at a juncture where action and decision making can re-configure power relations. Re-thinking practice in terms of what the doing of occupational therapy does in relation to networks of power, is an opportunity for practitioners to enact policy at the street-level in ways that use their ability to influence power from the bottom up whilst being alert to the dangers presented by doing so.

text: Street-level bureaucracy and occupational therapy practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. A genealogical critique. As a human science that is also part of administering and supporting bureaucracy, occupational therapy functions in multi-layered networks of power  that support many different social structures. Occupational therapists’ work often involves operationalising health, education and social services at the street-level, positioning them between the aspirations of both policy and social activism and material life outcomes. Through a genealogical critique, this thesis problematises the practice of occupational therapy through a Foucauldian lens that views everything as dangerous. By viewing occupational therapy practice as dangerous, the power relations at the street-level of the mundane and taken-for-granted have been problematised as part of much larger social structures of power and discourse. 
Several Foucauldian tools were deployed in order to ensure that a focus on occupational therapy practices was maintained; three distinct research methods were utilised to access a range of heterogeneous genealogical information.  Firstly, an historical archival analysis of the four iterations of the Competencies for Registration for occupational therapists document (1990 to the current day) produced by the regulatory authority, the Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand, was carried out.  Secondly, practice observations of occupational therapists working in different practice settings were analysed as three individual case studies. Concurrently with these two methods, a critical action method using a research blog was developed to create a medium for public discussion of practice through an open engagement with the profession. The combination of these three methods enabled access to a range of elements for analysis.  Many of these elements inter-linked, overlapped and connected to historically contingent networks of dominant power that have formed through the processes of colonisation, the establishment of the health system and normalised medical practices, and economic forms of governance. The nuances of how occupational therapy is practised at the street-level offered opportunities to contest the dominance of these networks. In all three case studies there was an unspoken understanding and a normalisation of materiality as an accepted and significant element of how the profession practised.  The material regimes of knowledge and material practices in these unspoken norms were highly productive and able to contest other lines of power.  Along with this alternate network of power, the most recent version of the Competencies for Registration offers a further opportunity for occupational therapists to contest dominant power relations in a way that could capitalise on the secure position the profession has developed through its material network of power.  Opportunities for alternate pathways of practice which privilege Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi are a possibility in the legally sanctioned Competencies. The close connection of occupational therapy practices to real life material outcomes for other people, position the street-level doing of occupational therapists at a juncture where action and decision making can re-configure power relations. Re-thinking practice in terms of what the doing of occupational therapy does in relation to networks of power, is an opportunity for practitioners to enact policy at the street-level in ways that use their ability to influence power from the bottom up whilst being alert to the dangers presented by doing so.

year: 2018