This paper begins with some comments on the way globalization has been linked to neo-liberal ideology. Then, the discussion shifts to East Asian (and specifically South Korean) political economy. Premised on an appreciation of the distinctiveness of the East Asia situation and economic trajectory, I will move into discussion of three key points about economic governance/organization: 1) foreign direct investment or, the historical lack thereof, during the decades of growth, 2) continuing technological dependency and obstacles to innovation, and 3) the emergence of East Asian business structures and networks and the rise of flexible production. While my cursory examination of these themes is suggestive rather than conclusive, it leads to some tentative conclusions that question the wisdom of the type of neo-liberal "reforms" that agencies like the IMF and some regional political leaders are foisting on East Asia.

Rapid Prototyping is an approach to software development which emphasizes quick implementation of a working program. This dissertation makes two principal contributions. First, it provides concepts, techniques, and a philosophy of Rapid Software Prototyping and characterizes the benefits and limitations of its use. Second, it makes a contribution to programming environments which support Rapid Prototyping. An experimental language, Castor, is described which was implemented to validate this approach in the prototyping of Ada programs*. The following summarize the main results of this research:

For most of the Twentieth Century, East Asia was among the least urbanized parts of the world; now it is a region where cities are growing the most rapidly and becoming increasingly important centers regionally and in terms of the global urban hierarchy. Tokyo is unquestionably a key "global city," with Hong Kong probably following not far behind, and Seoul and Taipei also moving up in the world city ranks as crucial national articulates of highly successful newly industrialized countries (NICS). At the other end of the spectrum, the teeming cities of the poor in southeast Asia seem to epitomize the appellation of Third World megacities. All the urban churning and foment that accompanies these dramatic transformations raise many questions. The very diversity of development trajectories and urban forms, functions and dynamics in the region is a caution against facile and premature attempts at generalization. But sensitivity to historical and cultural nuances and appreciation for variation also should not force social scientists to abandon a search for some comprehensive conceptual framework to understand the global dynamics of urbanization and (under) development.

This paper approaches this problems sensitized to the theoretical notion of global cities, worlds cities, and global urban hierarchies. These terms are only theoretically meaningful (and empirically useful) if we think about cities in global urban networks and in the context of their places in the larger structure of the world-system. After laying out a conceptual framework, we provide some preliminary ideas about how East Asian urban patterns–and particular cities–might fit into the schema. Extending the conventional discourse of global city analysis, the discussion l also focuses on those swelling metropolises in southeast Asia that are at the bottom of the world hierarchy, and suggests that perhaps we need to return to old debates about dependent/peripheral cities and the relationship between urbanization and underdevelopment. Mindful that oversimplified images that flatten the diversity of urban trajectories in different countries and regions are unhelpful, we call for a more theoretically informed sociological analysis of comparative urban patterns and processes.

The author contrasts the interpretative perspectives offered by comparative and cognitive psychology. Four strengths of the comparative program are considered in the context of recent research on animals' capacity for uncertainty monitoring or metacognition. However, several historical limitations of the comparative perspective are also disc—in these areas the cognitive perspective holds the stronger interpretative hand. The author considers the negative consequences that comparative psychology has garnered from the continued premium it has placed on low-level associative explanations of behavioral phenomena, and the constructive synergy that might come from integrating the comparative and cognitive programs.

Current scholarship on Botswana heralds its post-colonial development as a democratic miracle, while Zimbabwe is considered a corrupted and kleptocratic state. Despite analysts often painting these regions as two dissimilar cases of development, their mutual decisions to expel populations for the sake of accessing diamond reserves demands further investigation. I take up this challenge.

In chapter 1, I summarize the driving questions behind my investigation and briefly outline the history of the global diamond industry. Chapter 2 outlines the theoretical synthesis that guides my analysis. This includes theories on global political economy, state theory, economic geography, and ideology and discourse analysis. Chapter 3 presents the epistemological and methodological approach informing my comparative and historical research design, while also outlining my sources of data. Chapter 4 discusses Botswana’s post-colonial governance and the importance of diamond mining to the governing bloc’s developmental strategy. I analyze their decision to expel the indigenous San population from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, for the sake of accessing subterranean diamond reserves. I uncover a partially successful diamond mining venture that also left the newly dispossessed population depressed and lacking access to basic amenities. Chapter 5 examines the post-colonial developmental trajectory of Zimbabwe. I discuss the importance of discovering substantial reserves of diamonds in their Marange region and the brutal, government-sponsored population expulsions that followed this discovery for the sake of accessing these reserves. I find there was a minimally successful project of extraction and export, while the newly dispossessed population often languished in poverty, without electricity or water. Chapter 6 offers comparative insights, highlighting how these brutally-obtained diamonds were able to be extracted and enter the global diamond market in part due to a narrowly-defined conceptualization of conflict/blood diamonds. I also highlight structural trends of the global political economy that shaped and responded to institutional, ideo-discursive, and spatial configurations in each locale, making extraction and dispossession more and/or less difficult over time. Chapter 7 concludes by relating my findings to broader and ongoing trends, including the limitations of extraction-based development, the changing shape of the global diamond market, and brutal land dispossessions in the global South.