Defence and development: a case study of the Philippines

In the security spectrum, there is a blurring line between defence and development. In both traditional and non-traditional security situations, such as counterinsurgency and natural disasters, the armed forces has been called to respond in ways other than their mandate of physical protection in order to attend to human development needs. How and when this transition of roles happens has been studied and debated. As the main security institution of a country, militaries around the world have performed duties outside of their defence functions. Their tasks have expanded from maintaining peace and order to including nation-building, economic development, the provision of disaster relief, and engaging in efforts to conserve natural resources. Looking at these extra functions, the Philippines armed forces are no different in performing non-traditional roles. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is one of the key institutions, which has been at the forefront of the campaign in tackling these domestic challenges. To a certain extent, the mixture of economic activities with combat operations has characterised the military’s different campaigns such as counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency. Involvement in economic functions has been justified on the grounds that it is critical to ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of those living on the front lines, supporting the military’s role in nation-building. The aim of this study is to employ pre-determined metrics to evaluate the contribution of the Philippine defence sector to national development, and, in turn, comprehensive security. Whilst the conventional view is that defence is a burden on development, the question this study poses is whether, by contrast, in the Philippine context, there is a positive relationship between defence and development; that is, that defence expenditure contributes to development outputs such as employment, skill-generation and even infrastructural investment. The study framework is anchored to the following policies: AFP Modernisation Act of 1995, and its subsequent revision, AFP Modernisation Act of 2010, the Internal Peace and Security Plan (IPSP), and the National Security Plan 2011-2016. The framework highlights the important security goals of defence industrialisation, internal security, and non-traditional security. These data were further substantiated and consolidated via archival sources, such as government and company reports, as well as secondary data (e.g. books, journals, etc.). The mission thrusts of the AFP demonstrate the organisation’s multiple objectives to carry out a mandate to protect the state and the people. The Philippines has a very modest defence industry with few companies manufacturing small arms and ammunitions. Its goal is to be self-reliant, however, issues within the Procurement Law prevents this. Meanwhile, the conduct of counter-insurgency efforts through the IPSP allows the AFP unified commands and field units to support government units and agencies in their peace and development programmes. Furthermore, the geographic deployment of military personnel and equipment across the archipelago allows the armed forces to respond in times of disasters. Overall, the armed forces has contributes positively to the national development of the Philippines. To this end, and based on the research finding, a number of important policy recommendations are advanced to raise the effectiveness of the Philippines’ security policies

Interaction in multicultural project-team meetings : managing the formative stages

This thesis explores how newly-formed, short-term, multicultural project teams develop ways to manage their interactions in project-team meetings. The research took place within a management integration programme at a multinational company in France. A number of models have been proposed in international business on international teamwork (e.g. small group development processes, international team life-cyles, features of internal team functioning). However, these models provide little or no detail on the interactional processes that team members experience as they move through the different stages of development. Research within applied linguistics and education, on the other hand, provides frameworks for analysing interactional processes. For example, frameworks such as ‘activity types’ and ‘communication of practice’ have posited that communication is regulated by a system of rules and norms as to the expected interpersonal and verbal behaviour. However, when new teams are forming, appropriate behavioural practices need to be created for teams to be operationally effective. Yet, little or no research has explored how this occurs within international teams. In my research I aim to fill this gap by examining the interactional processes of international teams during their formative stages. Using an ethnographic-like case-study method to examine three teams, this study explores the interaction processes that occurred as team members learned to work together, the similarities and differences in the establishment of these processes across teams and the factors that were perceived as playing an influencing role. Key findings from the research are that establishing rules and setting up roles were beneficial to teamwork, while language differences rather hindered operational effectiveness. Other factors that affected the project-team workshops across all teams appeared to be interpersonal team relations and corporate culture and values

Sport culture in Japan and the challenge of global processes: The specific case of Japanese baseball and labour migration

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis concerns itself with how sport culture in Japan - especially, baseball - has been transformed under the influence of globalisation. Globalisation, defined as the `borderless' world, is a key term in describing the state of affairs in the contemporary world. In sporting world, globalisation embodied itself in the forms of international (or transcontinental) labour migration, international sporting contests. Globalisation has tended to be analysed from a Western point of view because of Western domination in political and economic affairs as well as cultural ones for the past few centuries. This thesis tries to undertake the research of globalisation also from a non-Western point of view. There are many forms of global processes at work and globalisation has been conceptualised from various angles. After reviewing different approaches to the concept of globalisation, attention is shifted to the formation and the growth of sport culture in Japan in connection with globalisation. Modern sport culture was quite foreign in Japan before 1868, but with the Western influences dominant after 1868, Japan grew to be one of today's sporting powers. The growth of sport culture in Japan had marked characteristics according to social changes, which was reflected mainly in the form of Japaneseness and Westerness. This thesis classifies these social changes into four historical periods - the pre-modern (before 1868), the modern (1868-1945), the modern (1945-1990), and the post-modern (after 1990) - and explores sport culture in Japan in this historical framework. Subsequently, this thesis directs its attention specifically to Japanese baseball and traces the way in which the Japanese game grew in the face of American influences, specifically labour migration from America. Baseball, as the `national' sport in Japan, has been taken as an epitome of Japaneseness (observable in specific individual styles of play and attitudes to the game) since its inception. The tensions of between Japaneseness and American influences are fully discussed as an aspect of global processes. This thesis also assesses the significance of the immigration of Japanese players to American baseball especially from the 1990s on, more complex nature of labour migration in baseball Japanese baseball and the accompanying fall in the popularity of Japanese baseball. Finally, looking to the future, this thesis discusses possible trends to come. This thesis embodies original data collected from past American (and some other foreign) players, baseball journalists, and from documentary sources. Original translations from Japanese into English have been made to make it possible to use Japanese publications

China’s oil diplomacy: comparing Chinese economic statecraft in Angola and Brazil

This thesis aims to investigate the reasons for the variation in China’s oil diplomacy performance in Africa and South America in the period 2000-2010. Lacking sound experience in pursuing oil security overseas and enjoying strong financial muscle, China’s oil diplomacy is largely rooted in the extension of soft loans for infrastructure to oil-rich countries in exchange for steady oil supply and favoured access to oil acreage. Taking Angola and Brazil as case studies this thesis argues that differences in the institutional structure of the oil industry in each country, determined different outcomes regarding Beijing’s oil security goals. This thesis has found that although this template fitted well with the more centralised institutional environment in Angola, it was highly unsuitable for the more liberal and regulated Brazil setting. Furthermore, the advent of the recent global economic crisis (2008-2009) caused China to adjust its approach to the institutional particulars of Brazil becoming more efficient in that country regarding its oil security goals. Building on foreign policy analysis tools and concepts, an empirical analysis of the interplay between Chinese infrastructure-for-oil loans (hereby regarded as positive economic statecraft) and the institutional structure it met in each country, is presented. Through the case studies, this thesis aims to uncover to what extent the institutional context constrained Chinese oil diplomacy efficiency in Brazil for most of the past decade, and how innovation has surfaced in the context of the global financial crisis. This analysis thus gives interesting insights not only into the dynamics of China’s oil diplomacy in Africa and South America, but also into Chinese economic statecraft in general and how constraints that surface at the implementation level feedback into foreign policy formulation

Understanding the Drivers of Employees' Voluntary Pro-environmental Behavior at Work: an Analysis of Organizational and Individual Factors in the Banking Sector

fhis research is aimed at understanding possible antecedents of employees' voluntary proenvironmental behavior at work for better comprehension ofthe concept. lt also contributes to answer sorne theoretical questions raised by prior literature such as developing definition ofthe construct of employees' voluntary pro-environmental behavior and marking the importance of the service organizations and, in particular, banking sector in achievement of global sustainability. fhe proposed antecedents are grouped into organizational context-induced and individual factors composing two research models. The data was collected through questionnaire distributed among employees of banking sector of Kazakhstan and Ecuador. In accordance with theoretical formulations ali the hypotheses described for both models were statistically supported