Below, you will find a selection of prizewinning MSc dissertations submitted by students from the Department of International Development. These offer a useful guide to current students on how to prepare and write a high calibre dissertation.
(You can view, save or print the full text of the paper in PDF format using Adobe Reader, which is available as a free download.)
2014/15
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2015-MP (PDF) "Corruption by design" and the management of infrastructure in Brazil: Reflections on the Programa de Aceleração ao Crescimento - PAC Maria da Graça Ferraz de Almeida Prado Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation Development Management
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2015-IE (PDF) Breaking Out Of the Middle-Income Trap: Assessing the Role of Structural Transformation Ipek Ergin Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation Development Studies
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2015-AML (PDF) Labour Migration, Social Movements and Regional Integration A Comparative Study of the Role of Labour Movements in the Social Transformation of the Economic Community of West African States and the Southern African Development Community Anne Marie Engtoft Larsen Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation Development Management
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2015-MM (PDF) Who Bears the Burden of Bribery? Evidence from Public Service Delivery in Kenya Michael Mbate Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation and Best Overall Performance Development Management
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2015-KK (PDF) Export Processing Zones as Productive Policy: Enclave Promotion or Developmental Asset? The Case of Ghana
Kilian Koffi
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
African Development
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2015-GM (PDF) Forgive and Forget? Reconciliation and Memory in Post-Biafra Nigeria
Gemma Mehmed
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies (IDHE)
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2015-AS (PDF) From Sinners to Saviours: How Non-State Armed Groups use service delivery to achieve domestic legitimacy
Anthony Sequeira
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation and Best Overall Performance
International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies (IDHE)
2013/14
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2014-NS (PDF) Anti-Corruption Agencies: Why Do Some Succeed and Most Fail? A Quantitative Political Settlement Analysis
Nicolai Schulz
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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2014-MP (PDF) International Capital Flows and Sudden Stops: a global or a domestic issue?
Momchil Petkov
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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2014-TC (PDF) Democracy to Decline: do democratic changes jeopardize economic growth?
Thomas Coleman
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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2014-AK (PDF) Intercultural Bilingual Education: the role of participation in improving the quality of education among indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico.
Anni Kasari
Excellent Dissertation and Best Overall Performance
Development Management
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2014-EL (PDF) Treaty Shopping in International Investment Arbitration: how often has it occurred and how has it been perceived by tribunals?
Eunjung Lee
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Management
2012/13
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2013-SB (PDF) Refining Oil - A Way Out of the Resource Curse?
Simon Baur
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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2013-NI (PDF) The Rise of ‘Murky Protectionism’: Changing Patterns of Trade-Related Industrial Policies in Developing Countries: A case study of Indonesia.
Nicholas Intscher
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation and Best Overall Performance
Development Studies
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2013-JF (PDF) Why Settle for Less? An Analysis of Settlement in WTO Disputes.
Jillian Feirson
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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2013-LH (PDF) Corporate Social Responsibility in Mining: The effects of external pressures and corporate leadership.
Leah Henderson
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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2013-BM (PDF) Estimating incumbency advantages in African politics: Regression discontinuity evidence from Zambian parliamentary and local government elections.
Bobbie Macdonald
Excellent Dissertation and Best Overall Performance
Development Studies
2011/12
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WP145 (PDF) Is History Repeating Itself? A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representation of Women in Climate Change Campaigns.
Catherine Flanagan
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP144 (PDF) Disentangling the fall of a 'Dominant-Hegemonic Party Rule'. The case of Paraguay and its transition to a competitive electoral democracy.
Dominica Zavala Zubizarreta
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP143 (PDF) Enabling Productive Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: Critical issues in policy design.
Noor Iqbal
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP142 (PDF) Beyond 'fear of death': Strategies of coping with violence and insecurity - A case study of villages in Afghanistan.
Angela Jorns
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP141 (PDF) What accounts for opposition party strength? Exploring party-society linkages in Zambia and Ghana.
Anna Katharina Wolkenhauer
Joint Winner, Best Overall Performance
Development Studies
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WP140 (PDF) Between Fear and Compassion: How Refugee Concerns Shape Responses to Humanitarian Emergencies - The case of Germany and Kosovo.
Sebastian Sahla
Joint Winner, Best Overall Performance
Development Management
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WP139 (PDF) Worlds Apart? Health-seeking behaviour and strategic healthcare planning in Sierra Leone.
Thea Tomison
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP138 (PDF) War by Other Means? An Analysis of the Contested Terrain of Transitional Justice Under the 'Victor's Peace' in Sri Lanka.
Richard Gowing
Best Overall Performance and Best Dissertation
International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies (IDHE)
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WP137 (PDF) Social Welfare Policy - a Panacea for Peace? A Political Economy Analysis of the Role of Social Welfare Policy in Nepal's Conflict and Peace-building Process.
Annie Julia Raavad
Joint Winner, Best Overall Performance and Excellent Dissertation Development Studies
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WP136 (PDF) Women and the Soft Sell: The Importance of Gender in Health Product Purchasing Decisions.
Adam Alagiah
Joint Winner, Best Overall Performance
Development Management
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WP135 (PDF) Human vs. State Security: How can Security Sector Reforms contribute to State-Building? The case of the Afghan Police Reform.
Florian Weigand
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP134 (PDF) Evaluating the Impact of Decentralisation on Educational Outcomes: The Peruvian Case.
Siegrid Holler-Neyra
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Management
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WP133 (PDF) Democracy and Public Good Provision: A Study of Spending Patterns in Health and Rural Development in Selected Indian States.
Sreelakshmi Ramachandran
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP132 (PDF) Intellectual Property Rights and Technology Transfer to Developing Countries: a Reassessment of the Current Debate
Marco Valenza
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP131 (PDF) Traditional or Transformational Development? A critical assessment of the potential contribution of resilience to water services in post-conflict Sub-Saharan Africa.
Christopher Martin
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies (IDHE)
2010/11
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WP128 (PDF) The demographic dividend in India: Gift or curse? A State level analysis on differeing age structure and its implications for India's economic growth prospects.
Vasundhra Thakurd
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP127 (PDF) When Passion Dries Out, Reason Takes Control: A Temporal Study of Rebels' Motivation in Fighting Civil Wars.
Thomas Tranekaer
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP126 (PDF) Micro-credit - More Lifebuoy than Ladder? Understanding the role of micro-credit in coping with risk in the context of the Andhra Pradesh crisis.
Anita Kumar
Best Overall Performance and Best Dissertation
Development Management
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WP124 (PDF) Welfare Policies in Latin America: the transformation of workers into poor people.
Anna Popova
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP123 (PDF) How Wide a Net? Targeting Volume and Composition in Capital Inflow Controls.
Lucas Issacharoff
Best Overall Performance and Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
2009/10
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WP117 (PDF) Shadow Education: Quantitative and Qualitative analysis of the impact of the educational reform (implementation of centralized standardised testing).
Nataliya Borodchuk
Best Overall Performance and Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP115 (PDF) Can School Decentralization Improve Learning? Autonomy, participation and student achievement in rural Pakistan.
Anila Channa
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP114 (PDF) Good Estimation or Good Luck? Growth Accelerations revisited.
Guo Xu
Best Overall Performance and Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP113 (PDF) Furthering Financial Literacy: Experimental evidence from a financial literacy program for Microfinance Clients in Bhopal, India.
Anna Custers
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP112 (PDF) Consumption, Development and the Private Sector: A critical analysis of base of the pyramid (BoP) ventures.
David Jackman
Winner of the Prize for Best Disseration
Development Management
2008/09
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WP106 (PDF) Reading Tea Leaves: The Impacy of Mainstreaming Fair Trade.
Lindsey Bornhofft Moore
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP104 (PDF) Institutions Collide: A Study of "Caste-Based" Collective Criminality and Female Infanticide in India, 1789-1871.
Maria Brun
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP102 (PDF) Democratic Pragmatism or Green Radicalism? A critical review of the relationship between Free, Prior and Informed Consent and Policymaking for Mining.
Abbi Buxton
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP100 (PDF) Market-Led Agrarian Reform: A Beneficiary perspective of Cédula da Terra.
Veronika Penciakova
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Studies
2007/08
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WP98 (PDF) No Business like Slum Business? The Political Economy of the Continued Existence of Slums: A case study of Nairobi.
Florence Dafe
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP97 (PDF) Power and Choice in International Trade: How power imbalances constrain the South's choices on free trade agreements, with a case study of Uruguay.
Lily Ryan-Collins
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Dissertation
Development Management
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WP96 (PDF) Health Worker Motivation and the Role of Performance Based Finance Systems Africa: A Qualitative Study on Health Worker Motivation and the Rwandan Performance Based finance initiative in District Hospitals.
Friederike Paul
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Dissertation
Development Management
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WP95 (PDF) Crisis in the Countryside: Farmer Suicides and the Political Economy of Agrarian Distress in India.
Bala Posani
Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Management
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WP94 (PDF) From Rebels to Politicians. Explaining Rebel-to Party Transformations after Civil War: The case of Nepal.
Dominik Klapdor
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP92 (PDF) Guarding the State or Protecting the Economy? The Economic factors of Pakistan's Military coups.
Amina Ibrahim
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP91 (PDF) Man is the remedy of man: Constructions of Masculinity and Health-Related Behaviours among Young men in Dakar, Senegal.
Sarah Helen Mathewson
Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Studies
2006/07
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WP90 (PDF) Resolving the Theoretical Ambiguities of Social Exclusion with reference to Polarisation and Conflict.
Andrew Martin Fischer
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WP89 (PDF) Political Institutions, size of government and redistribution: an empirical investigation.
Martina Tonizzo
Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP88 (PDF) Managing Conspiracy Theories in Public Health: Ensuring that voice does not lead to exit.
Clara Rubincam
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Management
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WP87 (PDF) Explaining Pareto-Inefficient International Cooperation Using Argentina's Bilateral Investment Treaties.
Laura Collinson
Best Overall Performance and Excellent Dissertation
Development Management
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WP86 (PDF) Will 'devolution' improve the accountability and responsiveness of social service delivery in Balochistan, Pakistan? A political economy perspective.
Mark Rolls
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP85 (PDF) Opening the Gates to the Formal and Legal City: Formal access to land and housing by the urban poor - some lessons from Johannesburg and Dar es Salaam.
Brenda Murphy
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Studies
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WP84 (PDF) Assessing the Prospects for Market-mediated land Reform: Evidence from South Africa.
Benjamin Magahy
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Studies
2005/06
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WP81 (PDF) The Institutional Political Economy of State-led Economic Reform: Early Urban Land Development and the Construction of Oriental Plaza in Beijing, China.
Michael Hoevel
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WP80 (PDF) State of the Displaced: The Role of Returning Displaced Persons in Post-Conflict State Reconstruction.
Dominik Helling
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP79 (PDF) An Empowerment Approach to Female Migration: A Case Study of China's Manufacturing Industry.
Tseun Kweun Yu
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP78 (PDF) From Politicization of Grievances to Political Violence: An Analysis of the Maoist Movement in Nepal.
Yurendra Basnett
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Management
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WP77 (PDF) Unveiling the Invisible Hand: Explaining Pharmacies' Participation in Public-Private Partnerships for Public Health in Vietnam.
Jordan W. Swanson
Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Management
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WP76 (PDF) Policy coherence in international responses to state failure: the role of the United Kingdom in Sierra Leone.
Jonathan Pickering
Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Studies
2004/05
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WP71 (PDF) Basel II and Development Countries: Understanding the Implications.
Robert Bailey
Best Overall Performance and Best Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP70 (PDF) The World Bank & Rule of Law Reforms.
Gordon Barron
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies (Research)
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WP68 (PDF) Innovative Approaches to Municipal Infrastructure Financing: A case study on Tamil Nadu, India.
Pritha Venkatachalam
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Management
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WP67 (PDF) Comparing Naughty BITS: Assessing the Developmental Impact of Variation in Bilateral Investment Treaties.
Peter Chowla
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Overall Performance
Development Management
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WP66 (PDF) Poverty Alleviation or Political Networking? A combined Qul-Quant Analysis of the Implementation of Safety Nets in post-crisis Argentina.
Paula Giovagnoli
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies (Research)
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WP65 (PDF) Corruption in World Bank Financed Projects: Why Bribery is a Tolerated Anathema.
Nathaniel Hobbs
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies
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WP64 (PDF) Industrial Policy, Trade-Agreements and Decisions in Time: Two reasons why developing countries willingly limit their options And one imaginative way of stopping it.
Arvinn Gadgil
Joint Winner of the Prize for Excellent Dissertation
Development Studies (Research)
2003/04
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WP55 (PDF) Democratisation by Technocratic Design: The Case of Social Funds in the Philippines.
Charmaine Ramos
Winner of the Prize for Best Performance
Development Management
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WP54 (PDF) Government and external risk mitigation: Why was Singapore less affected by the Asian financial crisis than its Southeast Asian neighbours?
Maria Delfina Alcaide Garrido
Winner of the Prize for Best Performance
Development Studies
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WP52 (PDF) Beyond 2015: Assessing the Economic Sustainability of the Millennium Development Goal to Halve Poverty
Yaniv Stopnitzky
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Management
2002/03
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WP48 (PDF) The Good Governance Agenda: Who Wins and Who Loses. Some Empirical Evidence for 2001
Julie Aubut
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WP46 (PDF) Soil and Struggle: Civil Conflict and State Formation in El Salvador and Costa Rica
Ben Oppenheim
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
Development Studies
2001/02
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WP49 (PDF) Human Rights and Development: The World Bank's Need for a Consistent Approach
Canan Gundez
Winner of the Prize for Best Dissertation
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WP43 (PDF) The Anti-Politics Machine Revisited: The Accommodation of Power and the Depoliticization of Development and Relief in Rural India
Joseph Tordella
Best Overall Performance
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WP41 (PDF) From 'Antipolitics' to Anti-politics': What Became of East European 'Civil Society'?
Tessa Brannan
Winner of the Highly Commended Dissertation Prize
2000/01
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WP29 (PDF) Telecommunications for All: Does Liberalization Help?
Shani Ospina
Joint Winner of the Highly Commended Dissertation Prize
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WP28 (PDF) Discourses of disasters, discourses of relief and DFID's humanitarian aid policy
Alexandra Galperin
Joint Winner of the Highly Commended Dissertation Prize
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WP21 (PDF) The Livelihood Conflicts Approach on Trial in Rwanda: Towards a Political Critique
Justin Macdermott
Joint Winner of the Highly Commended Dissertation Prize
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WP20 (PDF) A New Apartheid? Urban spatiality, (fear of) crime, and segregation in Cape Town, South Africa
Charlotte Spinks
Best Overall Performance
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WP19 (PDF) The hare and Tortoise: Does Slow and Steady Financial liberalization Win the Race? A Tunisian Case Study
Philippe Hall
Joint Winner of the Highly Commended Dissertation Prize
1999/00
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WP37 (PDF) Trauma and Conflict
Edward Balke
Joint Winner of the Outstanding Dissertation Prize
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WP32 (PDF) Consolidation Democracy: Political Society and NGOs in Thailand
Elinor Wakefield
Joint Winner of the Outstanding Dissertation Prize
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WP26 (PDF) Wars and Votes: Power, conflict and Institutions
Martin Hermann
Joint Winner of the Outstanding Dissertation Prize
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WP18 (PDF) Corruption: Deconstructing the World bank Discourse
Tara Polzer
Joint Winner of the Outstanding Dissertation Prize