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Bernards Nick, PhD Candidate

Biography

Supervisor: Dr. Robert O'Brien 

Dissertation Title: 'Actors and Entanglements in Global Governance: The ILO in sub-Saharan Africa'

Project Summary: My dissertation examines the International Labour Organization’s involvement in African development assistance programmes. The literature on international organizations in IR rarely analyzes the engagements with marginal actors in the global political economy outside of their participation in or exclusion from decision-making at elite levels. As a result, debates about global governance often obscure or overlook the politics involved in the practice of governance on the ground. This research contributes to filling this gap in the literature by examining historical patterns of engagements between the ILO and African governments, trade unions, and other civil society organizations in the practice of ILO development assistance. The project covers the period from 1919-present, but focuses primarily on activity after 1960, examining ILO programmes across four issue areas: forced labour; employment, skills, and training policy; cooperatives and social protection; and workers’ education. These engagements help to demonstrate that governance is embedded in complex, contradictory ways in various levels of political contestation. The project ultimately shows the importance of various forms of agency exercised by often-overlooked actors in the global political economy.

Teaching

Sessional Faculty

2015 - 2016
POLSCI 4NN3E (2) Studies in Global Political Economy

Research

Articles:

Forthcoming - 'The ILO and African Trade Unions: Tripartite Fantasies and Enduring Struggles'. Review of African Political Economy.

2015 - 'The Internationalization of Labour Politics in Africa'. Critical African Studies 7(1): 7-25.

2013 - 'The New ILO in Sub-Saharan Africa: Action, Agency, and Ordering under Global Production'. Global Labour Journal 4(2): 109-133.

 

Selected Presentations (past year):

2015 - The ILO as Multilateral Security Institution? The Governance of Child Trafficking and the Ambiguous Politics of Border Security in West Africa. Paper presented at Networked World? Multilateral Institutions in International Security Governance, Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, November 6-7.

2015 - Workers of Africa Unite? The ILO and Pan-African Trade Unionism, c. 1960-1980. Paper presented at the Canadian Association of African Studies Annual Conference, University of Ottawa, June 5.

2015 - The ILO and Development Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa. Paper presented at the University of Warwick 50thAnniversary Conference on New Directions in IPE, May 15.

2015 - Governance, Ambiguity, and Agency in Global Politics. Paper presented at the 56th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, New Orleans, February 19.

2015 - The ILO, Africa, and the Ambivalent Politics of Financialization. Paper presented at the 56th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, New Orleans, February 18.