Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Europe, Western – Politics and government'
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DULLAGHAN, Neil. "Getting into bed with the enemy : exploring trends and effects of coalition congruence in Western Europe 1945-2015." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2021. https://hdl.handle.net/1814/70875.
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Defence date: 09 April 2021Examining Board: Professor Dr. Stefano Bartolini (European University Institute); Professor Dr. Elias Dinas (European University Institute); Professor Dr. Kris Deschouwer (Vrije Universiteit Brussel); Professor Dr. Heike Klüver (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Over the last seventy years Europe has seen government authority decentralised to subnational bodies, offering up new arenas for political contestation. At the same time, the typical cleavages in society that provided solid bases of support for political parties have crumbled, leaving parties in search of new alliances to obtain governing power. Political parties find themselves caught between the desire to get into office in as many government authorities as possible and the desire to present a coherent brand to the public, as signalled by their coalition partner choices. This research project stands at this tense intersection of interests and provides new clarity to the historical record and some exploratory lines of inquiry into the effects of this dynamic. The existing work on measuring the extent to which regional and national governments mirror each other is investigated and critiqued in order to develop a new operationalisation of coalition congruence that is amenable to large-N research. On the basis of this new measure, the historical record from 1945 to 2015 of coalition congruence in nine Western European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland) is mapped out in order to identify broad trends running alongside the wider trend of dealignment from party politics. Following this, a number of hypotheses about the institutional determinants of congruence and effects of congruence on party perceptions are explored. The number of regional governments that cut across the government-opposition divide has been on the increase in Europe, especially so in some countries, and these cross-cutting governments appear to play a role in party attachment, but not through the causal mechanism of shifting left-right perceptions of party brands as expected by the literature. This project adds a new operationalisation of a concept, a new empirical dataset, extends the branding model of partisanship to the subnational level, and contributes to moving forward the fourth wave of coalition studies.
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FERNANDES, Daniel. "Governments, public opinion, and social policy : change in Western Europe." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/75046.
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Defence date: 21 November 2022Examining Board: Prof. Ellen Immergut (EUI, Supervisor); Prof. Anton Hemerijck (EUI); Prof. Christoffer Green-Pedersen (Aarhus University); Prof. Evelyne Hübscher (Central European University)
This dissertation investigates how public opinion and government partisanship affect social policy. It brings an innovative perspective that links the idea of democratic representation to debates about the welfare state. The general claim made here is that social policy is a function of public and government preferences. This claim hinges on two critical premises. The first relates to the general mechanisms that underlie government representation. Politicians have electoral incentives to align their actions with what citizens want. They may respond to public opinion indirectly by updating their party agendas, which can serve as the basis for social policy decisions in case they get elected. They may also respond directly by introducing welfare reforms that react to shifts in public opinion during their mandates. The second premise concerns how citizens and politicians structure their preferences over welfare. These preferences fall alongside two dimensions. First, general attitudes about how much should the state intervene in the economy to reduce inequality and promote economic well-being (how much policy). Second, the specific preferences about which social programmes should get better funding (what kind of policy). The empirical analysis is split into three empirical chapters. Each explores different aspects of government representation in Western European welfare states. The first empirical chapter (Chapter 4) asks how governments shape social policy when facing severe pressures to decrease spending. It argues that governments strategically reduce spending on programmes that offer less visible and indirect benefits, as they are less likely to trigger an electoral backlash. The experience of the Great Recession is consistent with this claim. Countries that faced the most challenging financial constraints cut down social investment and services. Except for Greece, they all preserved consumption schemes. The second empirical chapter (Chapter 5) explores how public opinion affects government spending priorities in different welfare programmes. It expects government responsiveness to depend on public mood for more or less government activity and the most salient social issues at the time. Empirical evidence from old-age, healthcare and education issue-policy areas supports these claims. Higher policy mood and issue saliency is positively associated with increasing spending efforts. Public opinion does not appear to affect unemployment policies. vii The third empirical chapter (Chapter 6) examines how party preferences affect spending priorities in unemployment programmes. It claims that preferences on economic intervention in the economy and welfare recalibration affect different components of unemployment policy. Evidence from the past 20 years bodes well with these expectations. The generosity of compensatory schemes depends on economic preferences. The left invests more than the right. The funding of active labour-market policies depends on both preference dimensions. Among conventional parties, their funding follows the same patterns as compensatory schemes. Among recalibration parties, parties across the economic spectrum present comparable spending patterns.
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Rubio, Diego. "The ethics of deception : secrecy, transparency and deceit in the origins of modern political thought." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3e92fabc-9e47-41a5-a739-00a0f67d6dcf.
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The purpose of this thesis is to reflect on the importance that deception has had on the efficient functioning of societies and the development of individuals. I attempt to do so by adopting an historical perspective, analysing the development of the notion of lawful deception during the Middle Ages and, mainly, the Early Modern Age through theological and political discourses. The scope of my investigation is pan-European. I examine sources from the major Western territories, but I pay special attention to those produced in the Spanish-Habsburg Empire, which was a major political and cultural entity during this period. My claim is that between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, the West witnessed the formation of what I call an "Ethics of Deception:" a trend of thought that, without challenging the Augustinian prohibition of lying, recognised deception as intrinsic to nature and mankind, thereby justifying its use from moral and political perspectives. I explain how this intellectual process was conducted, fostered by new social realities, and helped by the flourishing of casuistry, tacitism and neostoicism. Furthermore, I argue that the acceptance of deception contributed to the creation of a new view of the world, language and human interaction. A view that is in the very basis of some of the most characteristic features of Baroque art and that opened the door to some of the most transcendental cultural changes of the period, such as the creation of politics governed by reason rather than faith, the secularisation of social behaviour, and the emergence of the notions of individualism, privacy and freedom of thought. For these reasons, I claim that deception played an important role in the shaping of Modernity.
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Fletcher, Jody D. (Jody Daniel). "The Pull to the Right in Western Europe: an Analysis of Electoral Support for the Extreme-Right." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1998. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278202/.
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This study develops a model explaining support for contemporary extreme-right parties. The history and political setting of relevant countries are examined. The research explores necessary state-level conditions, which are postindustrialism, convergence to the center by major parties, and proportional representation. Individual support is probed using survey data with bivariate and probit analyses. Being male and younger proved to be significant variables, while socio-economic status did not. Concerning issues, personal disaffection for immigrants, favoring nationalistic hiring practices, and free-market tendencies were significant variables. Opposition to feminism and pride to be from one's nation were insignificant explanations for extreme-right support. Implications of the analysis are discussed as are issues concerning future research.
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Maor, Moshe. "The dynamics of minority rule : intra-party politics and minority governments in Western Europe." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1992. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1174/.
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The aim of this study is to provide a theoretical and empirical explanation of the question: How do conflicts within a party affect its coalitional behaviour insofar as such conflicts may influence the bargaining power of party elites in the parliamentary arena. There are three major themes around which the theoretical explanation is organized. The first theme is that 'party institutionalization' and the nature of intra-party conflicts are important factors in shaping the ability of the party elites to neutralize internal conflicts. The second theme - a particular application of the first - is that the strength of a party in the parliamentary bargaining plane (i.e. its relative bargaining power) lies in its organization weakness. The third theme reveals that political parties, which are characterized by the existence of heterogeneous and diffused mechanisms for internal dissent, can handle internal conflicts in a variety of ways without forcing members to leave the party. Based upon a comparative analysis of intra-party conflicts and minority governments in Denmark, Norway, France, Italy and the U.K., the study suggests that weakly institutionalized parties can enter into conflict inducing coalition negotiations without risking their hold on their membership, whereas inter-party negotiations can lead to disintegration of highly institutionalized parties as members may be forced to leave the party as their primary mechanism for expression of discontent. A major implication of this study is that in multi-party systems in which minority situations occur, the most attractive strategy (i.e. in terms of bargaining power) for highly institutionalized parties occupying a governmental position is the formation of informal minority governments, whereas the most attractive strategy for weakly institutionalized parties is the formation of formal minority governments.
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Herbert, Stephen. "The Europeanisation of local government in Western Scotland, 1975-1997." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2000. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3111/.
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This thesis considers the impact of Europeanisation upon local government in the West of Scotland through analysing firstly, the response of Strathclyde Regional Council to Europeanising influences and the policies which SRC subsequently pursued to respond to these developments. The impact of European policies as a form of multi-level governance is also evaluated through research into the role of local government within two institutions established in Strathclyde to deal with aspects of European policy :- Strathclyde European Partnership and the Ouverture programme. Lastly, the impact of local government reorganisation upon SRC's successor unitary authorities to engage with European policy is considered. The research findings illustrate that the process of Europeanisation has developed through a number of cyclical stages which has resulted in the development of changing and varying response from SNAs to European policy developments. The initial engagement of SRC with European Institutions occurred at an early stage as the Council attempted to discover new sources of finance. The pro-active stance of the Council resulted in financial benefits for Strathclyde but also an increasing engagement within SRC with European policy as the Council responded to the emerging Single European Market. This engagement also led SRC to attempt to utilise a variety of means to influence European policy. The research suggests that while local government was able to influence the European policy process this tended to occur where European Commission and / or member-state(s) interests overlapped with those of local government. While multi-level governance exists in Western Scotland, the key partners remain the European Commission and the member state.
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BIRNIE, Rutger Steven. "The ethics and politics of deportation in Europe." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/61307.
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Defence date: 19 February 2019Examining Board: Professor Rainer Bauböck, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Matthew Gibney, University of Oxford; Professor Iseult Honohan, University College Dublin; Professor Jennifer Welsh, McGill University (formerly European University Institute)
This thesis explores key empirical and normative questions prompted by deportation policies and practices in the contemporary European context. The core empirical research question the thesis seeks to address is: what explains the shape of deportation regimes in European liberal democracies? The core normative research question is: how should we evaluate these deportation regimes morally? The two parts of the thesis address each of these questions in turn. To explain contemporary European deportation regimes, the four chapters of the first part of the thesis investigate them from a historical and multilevel perspective. (“Expulsion Old and New”) starts by comparing contemporary deportation practices to earlier forms of forced removal such as criminal banishment, political exile, poor law expulsion, and collective expulsions on a religious or ethnic basis, highlighting how contemporary deportation echoes some of the purposes of these earlier forms of expulsion. (“Divergences in Deportation”) looks at some major differences between European countries in how, and how much, deportation is used as a policy instrument today, concluding that they can be roughly grouped into four regime types, namely lenient, selective, symbolically strict and coercively strict. The next two chapters investigate how non-national levels of government are involved in shaping deportation in the European context. (“Europeanising Expulsion”) traces how the institutions of the European Union have come to both restrain and facilitate or incentivise member states’ deportation practices in fundamental ways. (“Localities of Belonging”) describes how provincial and municipal governments are increasingly assertive in frustrating deportations, effectively shielding individuals or entire categories of people from the reach of national deportation efforts, while in other cases local governments pressure the national level into instigating deportation proceedings against unwanted residents. The chapters argue that such efforts on both the supranational and local levels must be explained with reference to supranational and local conceptions of membership that are part of a multilevel citizenship structure yet can, and often do, come apart from the national conception of belonging. The second part of the thesis addresses the second research question by discussing the normative issues deportation gives rise to. (“Deportability, Domicile and the Human Right to Stay”) argues that a moral and legal status of non-deportability should be extended beyond citizenship to all those who have established effective domicile, or long-term and permanent residence, in the national territory. (“Deportation without Domination?”) argues that deportation can and should be applied in a way that does not dominate those it subjects by ensuring its non-arbitrary application through a limiting of executive discretion and by establishing proportionality testing in deportation procedures. (“Resisting Unjust Deportation”) investigates what can and should be done in the face of unjust national deportation regimes, proposing that a normative framework for morally justified antideportation resistance must start by differentiating between the various individual and institutional agents of resistance before specifying how their right or duty to resist a particular deportation depends on motivational, epistemic and relational conditions.
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Kiss, Csilla. "Constitutional democracy in Eastern Europe." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=85176.
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The dissertation examines the establishment and strengthening of constitutional democracies during democratic consolidation from an institutionalist point of view. Focusing on Hungary and Poland, it examines how the right institutions can advance the creation and strengthening of a constitutional order. Among the institutions special attention is paid to the constitutional courts. The establishment and prominence of constitutional courts in most new democracies in East Central Europe fits into the general trend that was perceivable throughout Western Europe after WWII. The main rationale of these new institutions was to safeguard the democratic order from the return of authoritarianism. The main practical as well as theoretical significance of the introduction of judicial review was that it put an end to the then prevailing primacy of unlimited popular sovereignty and recast the concept of democracy in constitutional, rather than majoritarian terms.Such an innovation plays an even more significant role in Eastern Europe, where concepts of majoritarian democracy on the one hand, and reliance on a strong leader, especially in times of difficulties on the other, were prominent due to both communist and pre-communist legacies. Furthermore, the often ambiguous constitutional documents produced by the negotiated transitions, as well as the sometimes irreconcilable aspirations of political forces, provided the courts with a prominent role in shaping the new order.
Through the study of two issues, transitional justice and the presidency, the dissertation examines the various functions constitutional courts can play in democratic consolidation in general and in advancing rule of law systems, in resolving constitutional ambiguities and in controlling political actors in particular.
Drawing on the analysis of political events, primary sources, parliamentary minutes, newspaper articles and court decisions, the dissertation concludes that while the courts' record in solving institutional problems cannot be regarded as an unequivocal success, their role in defining fundamental constitutional principles is more praiseworthy. Not only did they manage to settle controversial issues as in the case of transitional justice, they also successfully curbed majoritarian endeavors and steered the new systems towards the acceptance of basic liberal constitutional values.
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Parau, Cristina Elena. "The interplay between domestic politics and Europe : how Romanian civil society and government contested Europe before EU accession." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2006. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2696/.
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The key research questions of this dissertation are: 'How do domestic actors construct Europe.' and 'How do they utilise it in seeking to empower themselves against other actors.' The questions of construction and utilisation of Europe are some of the most topical questions in Europeanization. The first question addresses constructivist/sociological concerns. The second addresses the issue of winners and losers (differential empowerment). Both are key issues in the literature of Europeanization and yet have been little addressed in the context of post-communist EU accession countries. This dissertation aims to bridge this gap by focusing on the post-communist country of Romania, a soon to be EU member-State. The actors under investigation are civil society, which emerged in Romania for the first time ever after 1989 and the central government Executive. The study covers the period during which the EU acquis negotiations were negotiated under the Social Democratic government led by Prime Minister Adrian Nastase (2000-2004). The data was gathered through in-depth case study and process-tracing, the methods found best able to disentangle a complex causal nexus. The Europeanization literature is contradictory with regard to which domestic actors are constrained and which empowered: some scholars theorise that it empowers civil society (Diffusion); others that it empowers the Executive (Executive Empowerment); still others that it promotes co-operation between them (Network Governance). The empirical evidence so far has been inconclusive. This dissertation shows that only a small elite made of civil society entrepreneurs and government Executives constructed and utilised Europe in the pre-membership phase, to empower themselves relative to other actors, particularly opponents. The empirical data support two of the classical Europeanization theses in the literature: the Diffusion and the Executive Empowerment Theses. The Diffusion Thesis better explains civil society empowerment near the beginning and at the peak of acquis negotiations, although some evidence also favours Executive Empowerment. This latter thesis better explains the powerlessness of civil society at the close of negotiations, although some evidence for Diffusion was also found. No evidence was found supporting Network Governance. Instead evidence was found in favour of its critics, namely support for the claim that the EU (or Europe) empowers an elite in both civil society and the State.
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Roy, Christian. "Alexandre Marc and the personalism of l'Ordre nouveau 1920-1940." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66083.
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Richey, Rashad [Verfasser]. "The Global Affect of Western Religion on Politics, Policy and Government / Rashad Richey." München : GRIN Verlag, 2017. http://d-nb.info/1166149196/34.
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REH, Christine. "The Politics of Preparation : delegated decisions, arguing and constitutional choice in Europe." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/10475.
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Defence date: 10 December 2007Examining Board: Prof. Adrienne Héritier (EUI, Florence) ; Prof. Frank Schimmelfennig (ETH, Zürich) ; Prof. Andy Smith (IEP, Bordeaux) ; Prof. Helen Wallace (EUI/RSCAS, Florence)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
This project investigates a ubiquitous yet under-studied phenomenon in national, European and global politics: delegated preparation, defined as those negotiations through which civil servants or experts "pre-cook" political choice in multi-level decision-processes. While examples are legion-reaching from legislative drafting in national ministries to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) in the European Union (EU)- the project focuses on preparation in complex international negotiations, and chooses EU Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs) as empirical case. Claiming that a look beyond the tip of the "decision-iceberg" will gain us deeper insights into how and by whom Europe has been constitutionalised, I tackle two wider questions: 1) What is preparation and what can it do? and 2) Under what conditions will preparation be effective? Linked to an understanding of international negotiation as a "thick" social process, I argue, first, that the key to preparatory effectiveness lies in a particular set of collective resources as a necessary condition, and in consensual preagreement as both necessary and sufficient. Second, with effective pre-decision-making thus hinging upon successful delegated arguing, a set of scope conditions favourable to persuasion are singled out. These include 1) a familiar, iterative and insulated social context as a pre-condition for the non-distortive use of arguments; 2) an issue's complexity as facilitating the resonance of expertise and novel ideas; and 3) a macronorm's constitutional-systemic nature as favouring factual arguments linked to the international system. The hypotheses are tested on the "Group of Government Representatives" (GoR), with units of observation chosen from the Amsterdam and Nice IGCs according to variation of issue complexity and constitutional-systemic nature. Process-tracing of five issues: the communitarisation of free movement, the integration of Schengen and the institutionalisation of flexibility (Amsterdam), as well as Commission reform and Council votes (Nice) confirms that delegated preparation plays a key role even in the "bastion of high politics" that is EU reform. Yet, empirical evidence shows that persuasion is less prominent than expected, and uncovers alternative mechanisms behind effective preparation,in particular accommodation, depoliticisation and systemic compensation.
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Inglis-Jones, James John. "The Grand Condé in exile : power politics in France, Spain and the Spanish Netherlands 1652-1659." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1995. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3ab667bf-f5af-45b7-985f-1d936f8299a4.
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This thesis looks at the career of the Grand Condé - Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé - between 1652 and 1660. During this period the prince was in exile in the Spanish Netherlands. As a consequence of his power and status in France the prince's exile had a decisive impact not just upon the politics of the captaingeneral's court in Brussels, but more widely, upon the foreign policy of Cromwell's Protectorate, Philip IV's government in Madrid, the regime of Cardinal Mazarin in Paris and the Franco-Spanish war. International relations between France and Spain during the 1650's have been largely ignored by historians, so too has French political history in this period. Yet, the 1650's were a vital decade for France and Spain both historically and historiographically. The period saw the final stage of the costly and attritional conflict between the two 'great' crowns, whilst in France the regime of Cardinal Mazarin was the last ten years of government by a cardinal-minister before Louis XIV's declaration of personal rule in 1661. This has assumed enormous significance for historians many of whom see it as an important period of transition. Ten major European archives have been consulted to build a detailed picture of the impact of Condé's exile upon politics within France and the war being fought in the Flanders theatre. The cardinal's regime existed throughout the 1650's in an environment of acute uncertainty and instability whilst it was by no means clear that the war with Spain was a demonstration of an 'ascendant' France dealing the death blows to a 'declining' Spain. By raising questions about France's 'rise' to European supremacy and the internal stability of Mazarin's regime the thesis rejects the straightforward terms in which this period has been treated. In particular, using the example of Condé and placing his exile and Mazarin's regime in the context of aristocratic politics, it demonstrates that there were no indications that grandee power was in decline. Indeed, the thesis argues that the power of the grands as a crucial element in the power structure of Ancien Regime France, was set to continue into the next century.
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Luedtke, Adam. "Fortress Europe or spillover? : immigration politics and policy at the European level." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=20441.
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Although the evolution of a unified Europe has been unsteady, the immigration policies of member states have nonetheless become increasingly harmonized in recent years. This harmonization has not been without its controversies, however, and is characterized by two inter-linked political disputes that have shaped the progress achieved thus far. The first dispute area is the exclusion of Europe's legally-resident third country nationals (TCNs) from the privileges of intra-EU free movement, contrary to the inclusionist arguments of the European Commission and Parliament. The second dispute area is the political struggle between advocates of intergovernmental decision-making structures, which are not subject to EU law or institutional control, and the advocates of full (supranational) EU competence over policy. Two hypotheses are contrasted to examine these disputes: (1) the "Fortress Europe" hypothesis, which foresees the continuation of exclusionism and intergovernmentalism; and (2) the "spillover" hypothesis, which predicts the inclusion of TCNs through the EU's central institutions eventually winning full competence over policy. It is concluded that although exclusionism continues to hold the upper hand, recent victories for supranationalism have confirmed the optimism of the spillover hypothesis.
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Huggins, Christopher. "Local government transnational networking in Europe : a study of 14 local authorities in England and France." Thesis, University of Portsmouth, 2015. https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/local-government-transnational-networking-in-europe(e90b229f-9a21-4dbb-986b-8240f8ffbcaa).html.
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Local authorities play a key role in European Union (EU) governance. They are no longer simply ‘passive receivers’ of EU policy, but proactively engage at the European level. This active engagement includes participation in local government transnational networking (LGTN), an activity which sees local authorities form links with their counterparts in other countries. The contemporary prevalence of LGTN presents an interesting empirical puzzle. Local authorities lack the formal competence to engage beyond their territories. Furthermore, since the financial crisis councils’ budgets have been restricted. Why, then, are local authorities participating in LGTN when they lack both the formal competence and the financial resources? This thesis tackles this puzzle. In particular it explores three broad questions relating to LGTN: - What is the extent of LGTN? - Why do local authorities participate? - What determines effective participation? By focusing on the local authorities within transnational networks, this thesis makes an empirical contribution to knowledge and informs a body of literature which has until now overlooked the perceptions of local actors in EU governance. It further informs conceptual debates surrounding multi-level governance and local level Europeanization. This focus is achieved through a cross-national analysis of 14 local authorities in south-east England and northern France, and adopting a qualitative empirical approach which draws data from semi-structured interviews, document analysis and participant observation. The findings show that LGTN continues to be a prevalent phenomenon and is therefore an important feature of the EU’s multi-level system of governance. However, engagement is not uniform. While all local authorities are involved, variation is present in the number of links councils engage in, the type of networks they target and their motivations for participation. In all cases, however, engagement in LGTN is driven by a rationalist logic, as councils seek to achieve individual pre-determined strategic aims and improve their relative positions. A number of local and external factors are shown to impact how effectively councils engage in LGTN and, ultimately, explains why the process of local level Europeanization is marked by differentiation rather than convergence.
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Richey, Dr Rashad [Verfasser]. "The Global Affect of Western Religion on Politics, Policy and Government / Dr. Rashad Richey." Munich : GRIN Publishing, 2017. http://d-nb.info/1138030546/34.
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Dobner, Gallit. "Referendum : a dead letter : prospects for self-determination in Western Sahara." Thesis, McGill University, 2003. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=79760.
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Western Sahara has been granted the dubious distinction of Africa's last colony. Long a victim of imperial enterprise, the territory was annexed by Morocco in 1975 Just as Spain withdrew. Despite international protest affirming the Saharawi people's right to a referendum of self-determination, still the question of Western Sahara lingers, frozen in time. This paper will demonstrate that a referendum no longer offers a way forward for three reasons: it is unlikely a referendum will be held due to Morocco's unwillingness to cooperate; if a referendum went forward, it is improbable that it would prove free and fair given Moroccan attempts to undermine the process; and if a successful referendum took place, it is unlikely the international community would be prepared to enforce Saharawi sovereignty. As such, alternatives must be sought. An examination of possible scenarios suggests limited autonomy, as a result of an Algero-Moroccan rapprochement, is Western Sahara's most likely trajectory.
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Towers, Bridget A. "The politics of tuberculosis in Western Europe 1914-40 : a study in the sociology of policymaking." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.310476.
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Kharroubi, Safwat. "The foiled state : a critical assessment of western donor aid provision and state-building in Palestine in the post-Oslo period." Thesis, Swansea University, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.678553.
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Scott-Smith, Giles. "The politics of apolitical culture : the United States, Western Europe and the post-War 'Culture of Hegemony'." Thesis, Lancaster University, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.286995.
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Whittow, Mark. "Social and political structures in the Maeander region of Western Asia Minor on the eve of the Turkish invasion." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b7b5a641-80b4-46cb-8b41-21e53af80054.
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The thesis is a contribution to two of the crucial problems of middle Byzantine history: the social and political structure of the provinces, and the explanation of the rapid fall of Asia Minor to the Turks at the end of the llth century. These problems are approached through a study of the Maeander region of western Asia Minor.Part one describes the geography of the region and shows it to have been a naturally fertile area, of great potential importance to the Empire. In the Roman period it had been very prosperous; the subsequent decline cannot be explained by geological or climatic factors. Part two surveys the archaeological evidence. The ancient city sites remained occupied at a sometimes very low cultural level through the early (7th -8th century) and middle (9th-llth century) Byzantine periods. A general move of settlements to apparently more secure sites with natural defences did not take place until the 12th-13th centuries in the face of the Turks. Up to the end of the llth century the city sites remained the focus of what was most active in the provincial society of the Maeander region. Part three looks at the region's elites. The strategoi and judges who ruled the theme of the Thrakesioi, which makes up the western two-thirds of the region, were outsiders appointed by the Imperial government in Constantinople and only in the region on short term appointments. Several major figures at the Imperial court owned land in the region but only as absentee landlords. When crisis came between 1071 and 1080 these outsiders abandoned the Maeander to the Turks. The church played an important role, but the resident local elite were a comparatively humble group, isolated from Constantinople, and lacking the influence to force the Imperial government into defending their interests.
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Marino, Bruno. "Why do parties open their leader selection rules? Evidence from Western Europe between party change and personalisation of politics (1985-2015)." Doctoral thesis, Scuola Normale Superiore, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11384/86217.
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Zhelo, Inessa. "Impact of Economic, Political, and Socio-Demographic Factors on the Parliamentary Election Outcomes in Central and Eastern European Countries." Thesis, North Dakota State University, 2008. https://hdl.handle.net/10365/29712.
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This study determines how economic, political, and socio-demographic factors impact the parliamentary election outcomes in central and eastern European countries in transition period. A one-way fixed-effect method has been applied to analyze two main economic models. The dependent variables are share of the Western-oriented and traditional-oriented parties. Data of sixteen countries have been used in the thesis. According to the results of this study, it is possible to conclude that outcomes of parliamentary elections in central and eastern European countries depended on political and socio-demographic factors from I 990-2001. Factors such as loans, received from the United States, per capita in the pre-election year, as a measure of external pressure, and share of agriculture in GDP, as a measure of country`s level of development, demonstrate consistent significance in both variations of the model.
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Bar-on, Tamir. "The ambiguities of the intellectual European New Right, 1968-1999 /." Thesis, McGill University, 2000. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=36750.
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The subject of this dissertation is the intellectual European New Right (ENR), also known as the nouvelle droite. A cultural "school of thought" with origins in the revolutionary Right and neo-fascist milieus, the nouvelle droite was born in France in 1968, the year of the spectacular student and worker protests. In order to rid the Right of its negative connotations, the nouvelle droite borrowed from the New Left ideals of the 1968ers. In a Gramscian mould, it situated itself exclusively on the cultural terrain of political contestation in order to challenge what it considered the ideological hegemony of dominant liberal and leftist elites. This metapolitical focus differentiated the nouvelle droite from both the parliamentary and radical, extra-parliamentary forces on the Right.This dissertation traces the cultural, philosophical, political, and historical trajectories of the French nouvelle droite in particular and the ENR in general. The dissertation argues that the ENR worldview is an ambiguous synthesis of the ideals of the revolutionary Right and New Left, and that it is neither a new form of cultural fascism, nor a completely novel political paradigm. In general, the ENR symbiotically fed off the cultural and political twists of the Left and New Left, thus giving it a degree of novelty. In the 1990s, the ENR has taken on a more left wing and ecological aura rather than a right-wing orientation. As a result, some critics view this development as the formulation of a radically new, post-modern and post-fascist cultural and political paradigm. Yet, other critics contend that the ENR has created a repackaged form of cultural fascism.
The nouvelle droite has been able to challenge the main tenets of its "primary" enemy, namely, the neo-liberal Anglo-American New Right. Moreover, it has restored a measure of cultural respectability to a continental right-wing heritage battered by the burden of 20th century history. In an age of rising economic globalization and cultural homogenization, its anti-capitalist ideas embedded within the framework of cultural preservation might make some political inroads into the Europe of the future.
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Nikolenyi, Csaba. "Party politics in a non-western democracy : a test of competing theories of party system change, government formation and government stability in India." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ48684.pdf.
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Brankovich, Jasmina. "Burning down the house? : feminism, politics and women's policy in Western Australia, 1972-1998." University of Western Australia. School of Humanities, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0122.
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This thesis examines the constraints and options inherent in placing feminist demands on the state, the limits of such interventions, and the subjective, intimate understandings of feminism among agents who have aimed to change the state from within. First, I describe the central element of a
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Tsagkroni, Vasiliki. "Political communication in perspective : identifying the message of radical right parties in Europe during the first decade of the 21st century : a comparative case study." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2014. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/9026.
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The thesis aims primarily to analyse the communication strategies of radical right parties. More specifically, the research examines three cases of radical right parties in Western Europe during the first decade of the twenty-first century with particular emphasis on the political communication along with marketing and branding techniques used to engage with the electorate to gain and maintain electoral support. These case studies comprise the Greek Popular Orthodox Rally (LA.O.S.), the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and the Italian National Alliance (AN). Different forms of content analysis are used in order to pinpoint the characteristics that identify the parties as members of the radical right family. Through this approach the thesis provides evidence that the parties, in their effort to become more appealing to their audiences, avoid direct engagement with issues, which reflect traditional ideological tenets of the radical right issues such as fascism, racism or xenophobia. Rather, they attempt to present a more mainstream and competitive profile in the political arena. From a market-oriented perspective, the thesis addresses questions on marketing and related explanations which focus both on how the parties choose to communicate with the electorate, what is their message and, through comparative analysis, whether there are similarities in communication techniques among the three parties and whether it can be argued that parties in the radical right family project a common profile in terms of their communication strategies. Furthermore, the application of such an approach to the use of political communication techniques of the selected radical right parties can contribute to a wider understanding of how the concept of ‘consumption’ has come to be applied increasingly in activities undertaken in the political arena.
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OSICA, Olaf. "NATO enlargement and security of Central Europe : a declining security community." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/10474.
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Defence date: 4 October 2007Examining Board: Prof. Friedrich Kratochwil (European University Institute) ; Prof. Pascal Vennesson (European University Institute) ; Prof. Michael Cox (London School of Economics) ; Prof. Adam D. Rotfeld (Polish Institute for International Affairs)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
The central argument of the study is that the NATO enlargement of 1999 failed to meet its strategic purpose. First, it has not removed the ‘eastern security dilemma’ which underpinned Polish, Czech and Hungarian quest for NATO membership. Second, it did not strengthen NATO political cohesion and military effectiveness. To support the argument the study mobilizes the concept of the ‘security community’ developed by Karl Deutsch in 'Political community and North Atlantic Area'. On the account of Deutsch’s concept the study approaches NATO as a security community. It sees therefore the NATO expansion through the prism of extending three features which characterize a security community: the meaning and nature of ‘trust’; ‘security’, and community’s capabilities (i.e. its ‘power’ and ‘responsiveness’). Because of the nature of these constructs, enlargement policy should not been seen as a one way process where candidates simply adjust to NATO practices and implement alliance’s rules and norms, but as a process of mutual learning and socialisation. For that reason NATO enlargement was a process of rebuilding the community; it challenged the community identity, its security concept, relationships among members, and also community capabilities; ‘power’ and ‘responsiveness’. Against this preposition, the study claims that the policy of NATO enlargement created a strategic ambiguity. First, a ‘trusting-relation’ developed only between candidates and community core of strength, that is the US. Second, rather than forge a new ‘concept of security’ the enlarged NATO accommodated competing visions of the alliance security. Third, new members failed to meet enlargement criteria pertaining to NATO capabilities due to the institutional and economic ineffectiveness and flaws in the NATO conditionality policy. As a result of it, NATO enlargement sharpened and multiplied alliance’s problems, weakened its political cohesion, and thus confronted the new members with politically and militarily challenges they were not prepared for. All this seems to contribute to NATO identity crisis and a growing feeling of insecurity among Central European NATO members.
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Speight, H. M. "Local government and politics in Devon and Cornwall, 1509-49, with special reference to the South-Western Rebellion." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.358743.
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Lamamra, Nisrine Amel. "Protracted conflict in Africa : the social construction of sovereignty and war in Western Sahara." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.608018.
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Richard, Picchi Anne-Isabelle Gijsbregtje Claire Frederieke Sophie Valérie. "Colonialism and the European movement in France and the Netherlands, 1925-1936." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609320.
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Riihikoski, Roope, and Fernando Chuecas. "Partnering with Competitors : SMEs’ Relationships in the Western European Defence sectors." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-417645.
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This thesis explores the relationship variables of Western European defence-related SMEs when they cooperate with their competitors (coopetition). In particular, how do these various relationship variables affect these SMEs when partnering with competitors? Many researchers have examined partnering with competitors however, this concept has been widely overlooked in the Western European defence sector. The research proceeds as follows: 1. Qualitative research with five different defence-related SME manufacturers in Western Europe. 2. Perceptions and answers of our interviews were further analysed, and 3. the empirical data is interpreted to support our research findings. The study concludes that, based on the empirical data, the relationship variables that can affect negatively to the SMEs are customer power, political forces, SME size, and coopetition in the defence sector. Also, coopetition itself can affect a relationship in a positive way. Moreover, the political landscape plays a critical role, by acting as a force of intervention when partnering. Additionally, the lack of resources has a decisive role in the decision-making process when choosing to collaborate.
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au, karinmac@iinet net, and Karin Mac Arthur. "The 'Emperor's New Clothes': The Role of the Western Australian Press and State Government in Selling the Story of the Northbridge Curfew." Murdoch University, 2007. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20070830.213559.
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The Northbridge curfew is one of the stand-out success stories of Western Australias Labor Government. Introduced in June 2003 in an alleged bid to make the streets safer, the Northbridge curfew has enjoyed overwhelming popular support and consistently high recognition in public opinion polls. This is despite the fact that the curfew bypasses those known to be responsible for most of the crime in the precinct (white males aged 18 to 35 years), targeting instead young people aged under 18 and affecting indigenous girls in particular. The curfew did not introduce any legislative changes (the police already had the powers under the Child Welfare Act 1947 to apprehend young people); neither did it allocate any additional resources to the organisations working with young people in Northbridge. Yet the coverage of the curfew in the WA press implied that indigenous youth presented a serious problem in Perths premier entertainment district and that the State Government was doing something about it.
This thesis uses a framing analysis of the press coverage of the Northbridge curfew as well as interviews with the relevant journalists and government media advisers to demonstrate how news values, work routines and political imperatives encouraged the WA press and State Government to work together in creating a 'fable' about Northbridge that criminalised indigenous youth. I argue that the story of the Northbridge curfew, like the 'Emperor's new clothes, presents a deliberate distortion of reality and that the various stages of its development illuminate the processes by which media and government can collaborate to manipulate public opinion.
I draw on my research findings to present recommendations designed, first, to encourage media professionals to develop a range of sources beyond government and, second, to draw the attention of the State Government to the broader ramifications of the Northbridge curfew story for all members of the Western Australian community.
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Smith, Alison F. "The effect of electoral institutions on party membership in central and east Europe." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2c9c60b1-5fd8-435e-a485-a5322de60246.
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Party membership levels in the new democracies of central and east European were predicted to remain universally low, stymied by post-communist legacies, the availability of state funding and the prevalence of mass media communications (van Biezen, 2003; Kopecký, 2007). However, more than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, membership levels vary considerably between countries, and also between individual parties within party systems. Using freshly gathered party membership data, elite surveys and interviews, this thesis explores a number of institutional hypotheses to test whether, as in western democracies, electoral institutions influence how parties organise and campaign. This thesis finds that national electoral systems, municipal electoral rules and business funding regulations have an observable impact on how parties use their members. In particular, 'decentralised' electoral systems encourage greater involvement of members in voter contacting and other small campaign tasks. This thesis concludes that, contrary to the dominant literature, the availability of state funding has little impact on party membership recruitment. Instead, central and east European parties' attitudes to members are shaped by a complex interaction of institutional, cultural, ideological and strategic factors.
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Wilson, Alice Rose. "Making statehood and unmaking tribes in Western Sahara's liberation movement." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/252250.
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Krawatzek, Félix. "Youth and crisis : discourse networks and political mobilisation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:80a45271-f04d-4c1d-abff-6ee6c6478941.
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This thesis explores the meaning of "youth" and the political mobilisation of young people in key moments of crisis in Europe. Between 2005 and 2011, youth became critical for the consolidation of the authoritarian regime structures in Russia. I show that this process included the restructuring of the discourse about youth, the physical mobilisation of young people, and the isolation of oppositional youth. How valid are these findings for regime crises more generally? I answer this question through an analysis of the breakdown of the authoritarian Soviet Union during perestroika, the breakdown of unconsolidated democracy during the last years of the Weimar Republic, and the crisis of the democratic regime in France around 1968. The cross-regional and cross-temporal comparison of these episodes demonstrates that regimes lacking popular democratic support compensate for their insufficient legitimacy by trying to mobilise youth symbolically and politically. By developing a new method of textual analysis which combines qualitative content analysis and network analysis, the thesis offers a novel social science perspective on the meaning of youth in the four cases. My study shows how discursive structures about youth condition the possibility of political mobilisation of young people. The thesis makes three contributions to comparative politics. First, on an empirical level, my study offers new insights into social movements at moments of regime crisis in different political settings. Second, on a conceptual level, I refine our understanding of the symbolic significance of the terms "youth" and "generation" in moments when society is reorienting itself. I also examine the significance of "crisis" and argue that the term expresses openness and the possibility to remake the past and future. Third, on a methodological level, my thesis builds on the growing interest in textual analysis by developing a novel multi-level approach in three linguistic contexts, which offers insights into the structure of public discourse and the actors involved.
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Leruth, Benjamin. "Differentiated integration in the European Union : a comparative study of party and government preferences in Finland, Sweden and Norway." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/16175.
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In the field of European studies, the notion of ‘differentiated integration’ (Stubb 1996) was developed in the late 1990s as an alternative to the crude membership/non-membership dichotomy. While the theoretical benefits of this approach are broadly discussed in the existing literature, further empirical studies have been deemed necessary (Holzinger and Schimmelfennig 2012). The Nordic states constitute a particularly interesting laboratory in order to study this phenomenon. Indeed, while these states share several socio-economic and political characteristics, they also differ in terms of their relationship with the European Union. Several studies on these relationships emphasise the relevance of certain contextual variables as key explanatory factors for the variation in attitudes between the Nordic states. However, there is also lack of analysis that looks into the domestic political features that these countries share. Furthermore, most studies in the field tend to ignore the respective government’s positions on European integration, and mostly adopt a top-down approach when focusing on the nation-state as a whole. Adopting a most similar systems design, this thesis aims to answer the following question: have Nordic government preferences on European integration been influenced by domestic political factors? In order to answer this question, four domestic variables are introduced and analysed: relative strength of parties in parliament; composition of government; type of government; and government ideology. Within this comparative framework, three Nordic countries have been selected: the first one belonging to the ‘inner core’ of the European Union (Finland);; while the second is located at its ‘outer core’ (Sweden);; and the third one serves as a control case as an ‘EU-outsider’ which is still located in the Union’s ‘inner periphery’ (Norway). For each state, the analysis starts in the early 1990s, when ‘Europe’ developed into a politically salient issue in domestic politics. The focus is furthermore set on their respective government’s positions regarding five distinct policy areas: participation in the European Economic Area; application for European Union membership; participation in the Schengen Area; participation in the Economic and Monetary Union; and participation in European Battle Groups. The main findings of the thesis suggest that when analysing governments’ positions on (differentiated) European integration, the domestic political features should not be downplayed. For instance, the Swedish government’s opposition to participation in the EMU in 1997 is mostly explained by a lack of party consensus over this issue, unlike in Finland where a broad inter-party agreement was secured for this policy area. The analysis further suggests that studies on party and government preferences on Europe should focus on policy areas rather than on the issue of integration as a whole. Such a focus provides for better understanding of the nature of ‘Euroscepticism’ in the Nordic region and, to a broader extent, in Europe.
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Packard, Jerrold Michael. "The European neutrals in World War II." PDXScholar, 1989. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3984.
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The thesis begins with a short section on the nature of neutrality in Europe in the 1930s, and briefly introduces the political circumstances of the six nations that remained neutral throughout the war. The primary subject of the paper deals with the relationship between the belligerents and the neutral states, especially the extent to which military strength and preparedness was responsible for the latter maintaining their neutrality.
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VIDAL, Guillem. "The political consequences of the Great Recession in Southern Europe crisis and representation in Spain." Doctoral thesis, European University Institute, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/63265.
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Defence date: 13 June 2019Examining Board: Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Elias Dinas, European University Institute; Prof. Eva Anduiza, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Prof. Kenneth M. Roberts, Duke University
The Great Recession constituted a breaking point in several aspects of the cultural, economic and political life of southern European countries (i.e. Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). This dissertation aims to shed light on the political consequences of the economic crisis in this region —with a specific focus on Spain as a paradigmatic case— by analysing different aspects of the political transformations that took place during the period of crisis. The underlying argument is that, albeit some relevant differences, the four countries experienced a common pattern: the incapacity of national politics to offer differentiated recipes to the deteriorating economic situation triggered a widespread crisis of representation that introduced new issues in the political agenda and drove the political transformations in these countries. The combination of a political and economic crisis at the national and European levels opened new political spaces that new parties capitalised by appealing to the need for democratic renewal and opposition to austerity politics. Furthermore, as illustrated by the Spanish case, and in particular the Catalan experience, the political crisis had far-reaching consequences beyond economic grievances, leading to the activation of different types of conflicts. Overall, the findings suggest that the transformations in the structure of political conflict in southern Europe in the aftermath of the Great Recession are not the by-product of a growing cultural divide —as is the case in several other continental and north-European countries—, but instead respond to the loss of credibility in the political system. Methodologically, the dissertation relies on an original dataset of media content as well as on several sources of survey data to test the empirical validity of the claims.
Chapter 2 'From Boom to Bust : A Comparative Analysis of Greece and Spain under Austerity' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as chapter 'From boom to bust : a comparative analysis of Greece and Spain under austerity' (2018) in the book Living under austerity : Greek society in crisis.
Chapter 3 'Old versus new politics: The political spaces in Southern Europe in times of crisis' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Old versus new politics : the political spaces in Southern Europe in times of crises' (2018) in the journal 'Party politics'
Chapter 4 'Out with the Old: Restructuring Spanish Politics' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Challenging business as usual? : the rise of new parties in Spain in times of crisis' (2017) in the journal 'West European politics'
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Winand, Pascaline. "Presidents, advisers and the uniting of Europe: American policy toward European integration, 1939-1963." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/213111.
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Ovseiko, Pavel Victor. "The politics of health care reform in Central and Eastern Europe : the case of the Czech Republic." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d8f1c4d3-9dda-4a2b-94d1-5afcb0cf5c87.
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This thesis examines the political process of health care reform between 1989 and 1998 in the most advanced sizable political economy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – the Czech Republic. Its aim is to explain the political process bringing about post-Communist health policy change and stimulate new debates on welfare state transformation in CEE. The thesis challenges the conventional view that post-Communist health care reform in CEE was designed and implemented to improve the health status of the people, as desired by the people themselves. I suggest that this is a dangerous over-rationalisation, and argue that post-Communist health care reform in the Czech Republic was the by-product of haphazard democratic political struggle between emerging elites for power and economic resources. The thesis employs the analytical narrative method to describe and analyse the actors, institutions, ideas and history behind the health policy change. The analysis is informed by welfare state theory, elite theory, interest group politics theory, the assumptions of methodological individualism and rational choice theory, and Schumpeter’s doctrine of democracy. Its focus is on the interests of health policy actors and how they interacted within an unhinged, but fast-consolidating, institutional framework. The results demonstrate that, while historical legacies and liberal ideas featured prominently in the rhetoric accompanying health policy change, in Realpolitik, these were merely the disposable, instrumental devices of opportunistic, self-interested elites. The resultant explanation of health policy change stresses the primacy of agency over structure and formulates four important mechanisms of health policy change: opportunism, tinkering, enterprise, and elitism. In conclusion, the relevance of major welfare state theories to the given case is assessed and implications for welfare state research in CEE are drawn.
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JehlicÌŒka, Petr. "A comparative investigation into the dynamics of environmental politics in Western and Eastern Europe 1988-1993 with special reference to the Czech Republic." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.325025.
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Howe, Philip J. "Well-tempered discontent : nationalism, ethnic group politics, electoral institutions and parliamentary behavior in the western half of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 1867-1914 /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC IP addresses, 2002. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3069226.
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Sheftel, Anna. "The construction of formal and informal historical narratives of violence in north-western Bosnia, World War II until present." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669877.
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van, Schoubroeck Lesley. "Gallop's Government: Strengthening Coordination in the Shadow of History." Thesis, Griffith University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366718.
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This thesis sets the Gallop Labor government in Western Australian during the period 2001 to 2005 in its historic context. It seeks to understand the capacity that Gallop had to deliver on promises for a more coordinated agenda in the light of community, political and public sector expectations. In doing so, it examines his capacity from three perspectives: the leadership environment, the actors around him and the structures and routines he was able to use. Despite their best intentions, the capacity of all leaders is shaped by expectations and the structures and routines that they inherit. Only with time can those expectations and conventions be changed. The research draws on interviews with key actors around Gallop, documents published by Gallop’s government and the literature more broadly.
Gallop was elected after only eight years in Opposition after the reputation of the Labor Party was destroyed by the findings of the WA Inc Royal Commission. He needed to establish his government’s credibility as a sound economic manager and to avoid at all costs perceptions of political appointments in the public service. He would also have been aware that Western Australian governments rarely get more than two terms so there was a sense of urgency to get things moving.
This thesis shows Gallop as an aspirational leader who relied on his public sector to implement reforms but he did not introduce systemic mechanisms to oversee implementation. This is not unusual in first term governments where the focus is more commonly on instigating change. It shows that the constraints of legislation, and no doubt his own reluctance to intervene in the light of history, resulted in a strong demarcation between public sector and political staff.
Gallop was clearly committed to a sustainable agenda. However, this meant that he faced the dilemma increasingly common to all leaders – any commitment to one interest group could be seen to disadvantage another. Therefore, attempts to provide balance across the environmental, social and economic spectrums could be seen as a lack of commitment or an ad hoc approach to decision making.
Gallop’s reforms to the machinery of government and to the administration of Cabinet were in keeping with contemporary practice. He instituted the State’s first attempt at a strategic plan across the public sector. He championed increased participation of the community in policy development and strengthened the capacity of his department to coordinate across several policy areas. His five years at the helm resulted in significant reforms but there remained a sense that more could have been achieved.
In focusing on three particular policy issues that Gallop tackled, I argue in this thesis that the traditional structures and routines can be successfully applied to those policy issues that can be reduced to relatively independent parts. However, those complex problems where the solutions to the parts are interdependent and which require on-going consultation and negotiation need new sets of skills and routines that are not likely to be an accepted part of the risk-averse culture so often found in bureaucracies. Moreover, the traditional coordination mechanisms of central oversight may detract from the likelihood that solutions will emerge. I argue that leaders could make more use of their accountability levers to monitor the collaborative capacity of central agencies and senior bureaucrats so that working together to solve problems becomes routine.
What cannot be known, is whether or not Gallop like his contemporaries such as Blair in the UK or Beattie in Queensland would have increased his attention to implementation had he stayed for a full second term. Nor can we foretell whether he or his department would have been able to establish the routines and culture necessary to work collaboratively as a matter of course to solve the most complex problems he faced.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department of Politics and Public Policy
Griffith Business School
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Bauhs, James Anthony. "George Orwell As Social Conservative: Populism, Pessimism, and Nationalism in an Organic Community, 1934-43." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1995. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278361/.
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This thesis argues that a socially conservative tendency informed much of George Orwell's commentary between 1934 and 1943, and that the same tendency reflected a general European trend. The main sources of this thesis are a large selection of George Orwell's works and a smaller selection of works by Frantz Fanon, Jose Ortega y Gasset, and Antonio Gramsci. This thesis relies upon Orwell's involvement in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1937 and his embrace of nationalism in 1940 as major organizational points of reference. This thesis concludes that Orwell's commentary was an example of a general European conservative reaction against Marxist-Leninist thought.
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Oliver-Evans, Ceridwen. "The implications of the abolition of influx control legislation in the Western Cape." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22412.
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Bibliography: pages 259-277.Influx control legislation was formally abolished in South Africa in 1986. This thesis investigates the social processes set in motion with its abolition in the spheres of employment and urbanisation and argues that the way in which influx control has been defined is central to any analysis concerned with its abolition. In this regard, influx control has been viewed in two senses: a narrow one in which it has been equated with formal influx control legislation, 'the pass laws'; and, secondly and more broadly, through definitions which embrace all methods of control over African urbanisation and associated labour mobility. This thesis argues that, in the macro domain, while influx control in its narrow sense has been abolished, it has been replaced with far more complex and subtle forms of control. These ostensibly racially neutral measures, an 'orderly urbanisation' policy and a wide variety of laws existing on South African statute books continue to circumscribe African rights. The research focuses on a specific region, the Western Cape, an area where influx control has been more harshly implemented than elsewhere through the implementation of the Coloured Labour Preference Policy. This thesis investigates on a micro-level, via the medium of a company compound, how people at both an individual and institutional level have interpreted the legislative changes and acted upon them. The particular range of actors include government officials, employers and employer organisations, union representatives, and migrant workers and their families living in the company compound. The evidence I present was obtained primarily through interviews and ethnographic field-research conducted in 1988. A particular concern of the thesis has been to examine the disjunction between policy and practice as pursued by government officials and the effects and implications arising from this among the actors mentioned above. The main themes which have emerged from this research are those of confusion and a lack of knowledge among many of the informants. It was found that high-ranking government officials lack consensus on vital issues of citizenship and employment which affect the lives of thousands of Transkeian and Ciskeian citizens. Employers, confused by the confusion in government departments, and confronted by a new situation and new sets of rules have either ignored these or succumbed to government policy. Equally, unions have been slow to respond or systematically adopt a policy on the 1986 legislative changes. Finally, it was found that migrant workers and their families are availing themselves of opportunities presented by the abolition of influx control legislation in terms of freedom of movement, although as I argue, this takes the form of a complex range of fluid and dynamic movement patterns between the compound, the rural areas and urban townships. This complexity, as the thesis demonstrates, is reflected both in the attitudes and in the practical daily living arrangements of the workers as they respond to and interpret the macro-level forces which affect them.
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De, Waele Jean-Michel. "Analyse comparée du processus d'émergence des partis et des systèmes politiques en Europe centrale après 1989: la République tchèque, la Slovaquie et la Pologne." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/212287.
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Blanco, Pérez Aitor. "The 3rd century A.D. in south-western Asia Minor : epigraphic studies into civic life and diplomatic relations with Rome." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:143b0ccb-7518-47ab-a9a8-bcd807a4b8b4.
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This thesis studies the inscriptions produced by the southern and western settlements on the Anatolian peninsula - modern Turkey - from the death of the emperor Commodus (AD 192) to Diocletian's accession (284). The 3rd century AD, a period of fundamental transition between the high and late Roman imperial ages, has traditionally been considered an age of crisis and decline. This crisis supposedly affected civic life as members of the local communities were not willing or financially able to take part in politics. Against this prevalent opinion in scholarship, the purpose of this study is to analyse the abundant epigraphic evidence surviving from this region in order to reassess the local activity of such political communities. The first chapter intends to determine whether the effects of the Constitutio Antoniniana on the nomenclature of the peregrine (i.e. non-Roman) population can be used as a reliable dating criterion. It also explains the methodology on which my collection of epigraphic evidence has been based. The second chapter examines the families, individuals, institutions and celebrations comprising the civic life of Ephesus, Lydia, Aphrodisias and Southern Anatolia (esp. Termessos, Perge and Side) in the first half of the 3rd century. These four case studies demonstrate a high level of local activity, which was recorded with inscriptions resembling those produced in the 2nd century AD. The third chapter analyses the communication between these local communities and the ruling power of Rome. On the one hand, this analysis describes the prevalent diplomatic procedures followed and their motivations. On the other, it evaluates the testimonies attesting direct contact between the population of south-western Asia Minor and imperial representatives such as governors, administrators and soldiers. The final chapter deals with the particular circumstances affecting the production of inscriptions in the region from 250 to 284. These four chapters demonstrate that the civic life of south-western Asia Minor can be studied from a local perspective and beyond the narrow methodological framework imposed by adherence to the model of the '3rd century crisis'. The contextualised analysis of epigraphic evidence provided shows strong elements of continuity in the civic life of the region and its relation with Rome. The same analysis also concludes that the stark decline and changes of the inscriptions produced in the second half of the 3rd century were not only caused by internal factors. According to these results, this thesis hopes to contribute to the reconsideration of the Anatolian peninsula in such a crucial period of the history of the Roman Empire.
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Reinhardt, Katrinka. "Mining and smelting technology and the politics of bronze in Shang and Western Zhou China : an inquiry into the Bronze Age interaction sphere." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26703.
Full textAbstract:
In this thesis I focus on mining and smelting in China during the Shang and Western Zhou periods (c. 2200-770 B.C.). The importance of bronze in Shang and Zhou society and the vast quantity of bronze artifacts recovered indicates that the acquisition of metal ore would have been a major occupation of the state. The Shang and Zhou governments controlled their own bronze foundries but did not control the mines. The mines are located in southern China where the Chu state flourished during the Eastern Zhou period, likely due partly to their possession of mineral resources, and in Inner Mongolia where the steppe cultures existed. The Zhou and the Shang were likely obtaining raw materials from southern and northern cultures, either through trade or raid. Provenance studies based on chemical composition of artifact and ore will help resolve the source of Shang and Zhou ore.