Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'State governments India History'

Royal endowments to Brahmanas have been interpreted either as a factor of political integration or disintegration in Indian history. Through the first thorough presentation and analysis of the epigraphic data from Orissa, this study argues that the period 300-1147 C.E. was one of intensive state formation and political development in which royal grants played an important integrative role. During this period, Brahmanas, many of whom were ritual specialists associated with the Yajur Veda, emerged as land-holders endowed by royal decree with privileged control over land. Despite the consistent appearance of sectarian affiliations in the royal inscriptions, temples did not benefit from royal patronage on a comparable scale. Until the close of the period under review, it was the gift of land to Brahmanas, not the royally-endowed temple establishment, that was a major basis of royal legitimation and political integration in Orissa.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1986.
MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH
Bibliography: leaves 56-57.
by Rajesh Kumar Pradhan.
M.C.P.
M.S.

This thesis examines some of the lesser known aspects of the colonial state, indigenous society and the processes of transformation through the numerous reported instances of scarcity or famine, which affected north India in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The study begins by situating famine years in the context of the process of colonisation, and argues that British policy and changes in the economy and ecology rendered north Indian society more vulnerable to drought and famine. As a consequence, north India experienced the most severe famine of the colonial period in 1837-38, which this thesis analyses at length. The 1837-38 famine witnessed largescale crime and widespread food riots. An analysis of patterns of collective action to preserve rights regarding access to food and subsistence is contrasted with the ambiguity in official perceptions describing it as 'crime'. This is compared with the process of transition from a 'moral economy' to a market economy as experienced in England. This thesis also concentrates on other strategies of survival, e.g. migrations, religious conversions, prostitution, child-selling and famine-foods. This study traces the evolution of the notion that the state was responsible for the prevention of famines through provision of work on 'works of public utility'. It seeks to demonstrate that famine relief policies of the East India Company in the early decades of the nineteenth century were also shaped by notions of destitution and charity that informed the debates on the New Poor Law in Britain in the 1830s. This thesis argues that the experience of famine was entwined with the quest for legitimacy of rule by the colonial state. Although the state progressively advocated laissez-faire, its humanitarian and pragmatic concerns resulted in a series of interventionist policies. The famine situations contributed to the expansion and consolidation of the ideological and physical infrastructure of the colonial state. By claiming to be the ultimate and most effective source of philanthropy, the colonial state sought to transform rival indigenous notions of charity. The rhetoric of benevolence and patronage implied new responsibilities for the state, and increasingly it was called upon and obliged to act for the welfare of its subjects. However, the limits of colonial welfarism and modernity were apparent as the state neglected responsibilities towards growing structured poverty.

The present work closely traces the emergence of a distinctively Gujarati political and cultural world by the fifteenth century, arguing that many of the political, administrative, cultural and religious institutions that are evident in modern Gujarat came into being when the region was unified by force and consensus under the Sultans of Gujarat. The western province of Gujarat with its extensive coastline became, from the eighth century, the hub of a vibrant network of trade that stretched from the Red Sea to Indonesia and over land to Central Asia and the borders of China. The ports and cities of Gujarat drew merchants, mercenaries, religious figures and fortune-seekers from the Arab world and neighbouring south Asian provinces. Gujarat' s general prosperity also attracted mass migrations of pastoralist groups from the north. Unlike previous studies that have tended to treat trade and politics as separate categories with distinct histories, the present research charts the evolving Gujarati political order by juxtaposing political control with networks of trade, religion and contestation over resources. Large parts of Gujarat were conquered in the late thirteenth century by the armies of the Turkic Sultans of Delhi. With the dissolution of the Delhi Sultanate in the late fourteenth century, the governor of Gujarat declared his sovereignty and inaugurated a line of independent Sultans of Gujarat who continued in power until defeated by the Mughal ruler Akbar in 1572. From the late twelfth century, Gujarat was the site of proselytising activities of various denominations of missionaries. By the fifteenth century, a wide variety of religious interests were competing for patrons, converts and resources. The highly evolved trading networks radiating out from Gujarat from the eighth century required pragmatic accommodation with successive political formations. Correspondingly, claimants to political power were heavily dependent upon merchants, traders and financiers for military supplies, and in return, offered the trading groups security and patronage. The constantly negotiated relationship between trade and politics was closely linked to the evolution of sects and castes, Hindu, Muslim and Jain. Trade and politics were increasingly organised and expressed in sectarian or community terms. In keeping with some recent literature, my studies suggest that community affiliations in this period were often negotiable and linked to changing status. The study ends in the late fifteenth century when the Portuguese arrived off the coast of Gujarat. Soon there were new alignments of identity and power as the pastoralist frontier politics of the previous period began to give way to settled Rajput courts, complete with bureaucracies, chroniclers and priests. The Sultans of Gujarat were now paramount in the region: wealthy patrons of merchants and religious figures, they were unrivalled in north India for their control of manpower, war animals and weaponry.

The purpose of this research has been to analyze the social relationships that developed during the formative years of East Indian indenture system in the Trinidad. This work is an attempt to explore how the East Indian indentured immigrants in Trinidad individually and collectively navigated through the experience of servitude to form a collective identity and become established in a foreign land as they evolved from transient laborers to permanent settlers. Without the Indian laborers the sugar industry and the islandâs prosperity faced ruin while the perceived prosperity of the Indians inspired resentment. Caught between the worlds of freedom and unfreedom, the Indians sought to establish themselves within Trinidadâs society.

India's nonalignment policy attracted the attention of many newly independent countries for it provided an alternative to the existing American and Russian views of the world. This dissertation is an examination of both India's nonalignment policy and the official American reaction to it during the Truman-Eisenhower years. Indian nonalignment should be defined as a policy of noncommitment towards rival power blocs adopted with a view of retaining freedom of action in international affairs and thereby influencing the issue of war and peace to India's advantage. India maintained that the Cold War was essentially a European problem. Adherence to military allliances , it believed, would increase domestic tensions and add to chances of involvement in international war, thus destroying hopes of socio-economic reconstruction of India. The official American reaction was not consistent. It varied from president to president, from issue to issue, and from time to time. India's stand on various issues of international import and interest to the United States such as recognition of the People's Republic of China, the Korean War, the Japanese peace treaty of 1951, and the Hungarian revolt of 1956, increased American concern about and dislike of nonalignment. Many Americans in high places regraded India's nonalignment policy as pro-Communist and as one that sought to undermine Western collective security measures. Consequently, during the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies the United States took a series of diplomatic, military, and economic measures to counter India's neutralism. America refused to treat India as a major power and attempted to contain its influence on the international plane by excluding it from international conferences and from assuming international responsibilities. The Russian efforts to woo India and other nonaligned countries with trade and aid softened America's open resistance to India's nonalignment. As a result, although tactical, a new trend in America's dealings with India was visible during the closing years of Eisenhower's presidency. Therefore, America sought to keep nonaligned India at least nonaligned by extending economic aid.

This thesis studies official policies of propaganda at different levels of the colonial administration in Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and the eastern United Provinces during the Second World War. By contrast to the available research, it treats 'propaganda' as a complex political strategy, whereby information and a variety of material benefits were disseminated, always biased towards a particular viewpoint, with the purpose of mobilising support for specific ideological campaigns, for example the publicity launched against the Indian National Congress between 1942 and 1944. Attention is given to the objectives of policy, the structures used to disseminate official propaganda, the limitations imposed on these efforts by the available technology, the audiences targeted, the themes advertised, and the impact of these activities on wartime and post-war politics. Contrary to earlier work on the topic, this thesis argues that colonial policy aimed not merely to suppress information inimical to that released by the state, but also to collect intelligence about the morale of specific audiences, their responses to the various nationalisms being articulated at the time, and the themes which needed to be addressed at particular junctures of the conflict. The thesis concludes that evidence of propaganda policies permiL<; generalisations about the nature of the colonial state in the 1940s. It suggests that the authorities failed to mobilise support for unpopular wartime policies amongst the civilian population and thus increasingly depended on the use of force; and that this failure contributed, in large measure, to the dissolution of the Indian Empire in 1947.

This thesis explores the origin of one of the most engrossing concerns of the post-colonial Indian state, that is, its extensive, intricate, and expensive feeding arrangements for the civilians. It tracks the colonial origin of the post-colonial welfare state, of which state-management of food is one of the most publicized manifestations. This thesis examines the intervention of the late colonial British state in food procurement and distribution in India during the Second World War, and various forms of such intervention, such as the introduction of food rationing and food austerity laws. It argues that the war necessitated actions on the part of the colonial state to secure food supplies to a vastly expanded British Indian Army, to the foreign Allied troops stationed in India, and to the workers employed in war-industries. The thesis brings forth the constitutional and political predicaments that deprived the colonial central government's food administration of success. It further reveals how the bitter bargaining about food imports into India between the Government of India and the War Cabinet in Britain hampered the state efforts to tackle the food crisis. By discussing the religious and cultural codes vis-à-vis food consumption that influenced government food policies, this thesis has situated food in the historiography of consumption in colonial India. In addition to adopting a political approach to study food, it has also applied sociological treatment, particularly while dealing with how the wartime scarcity, and consequent austerity laws, forced people to accept novel consumption cultures. It also contributes to the historiography of 'everyday state'. Through its wartime intervention in everyday food affairs, the colonial state that had been distant and abstract in the perception of most common households, suddenly became a reality to be dealt with in everyday life within the domestic site. Thus, the macro state penetrated micro levels of existence. The colonial state now even developed elaborate food surveillance to gather intelligence about violation of food laws. This thesis unravels the responses of some of the political and religious organizations to state intervention in quotidian food consumption. Following in this vein, through a study of the political use of famine-relief in wartime Bengal, it introduces a new site to the study of communal politics in India, namely, propagation of Hindu communal politics through distribution of food by the Hindu Mahasabha party. Further, it demonstrates how the Muslim League government's failure to prevent the Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44 was politically used by the Mahasabha to oppose the League's emerging demand for the creation of Pakistan.

This dissertation provides an analysis and evaluation of factors influencing states to enact inpatient health care transparency laws between 1971 and 2006 inclusive, using event history analysis. The primary research question investigates "What factors influence a state legislature to enact a health care transparency law?" To narrow the scope of study, I focus on factors influencing states to enact health care transparency laws to collect and publicly report inpatient data.

The Unified Model of State Policy Innovation, developed by F.S. Berry and W.D. Berry (1990, 1999), provides the framework for the study hypotheses and the analysis of inpatient health care transparency law enactments by states. The Unified Model of State Policy Innovation posits a unified explanation for state policy adoptions. The model unifies the internal determinants and regional diffusion approaches of analysis for state policy adoption.

This study tests eight hypotheses using event history analysis (EHA). EHA is an analytical technique that allows for the testing of a state government innovation theory that incorporates internal determinants and regional influences on state policy adoption. Although there are numerous methods to conduct event history analysis, this study uses the Cox proportional hazards model (also known as Cox regression). Cox regression is a popular method for studying time-to-event data for policy adoption and diffusion studies. This study's quantitative analysis provides support for legislative ideology and unified party control of state government acting as factors influencing inpatient health care transparency law enactments by states. Additionally, the health care crisis and neighbors variables were statistically significant, but in an opposite direction than predicted.

The findings of this research suggest that state adopters of an inpatient health care transparency law are more likely to enact an inpatient health care transparency law when the state government is increasing in liberalism and when unified political party control of the governor and the governorship of both houses of the state legislature is increasing.

To generate new insights into the enactment of inpatient health care transparency laws, I conduct a case study of a national health care data professional association using several techniques, including telephone interviews. The qualitative analysis provides support for professional associations and policy champions as diffusion agents for inpatient health care transparency law enactments by states.

This dissertation supports variables traditionally used in policy adoption research including legislative ideology and unified political party control in state government. However, it will be interesting to see whether internal determinants such as professional associations gain traction over the traditional regional diffusion influences such as states sharing borders as factors influencing state policy adoption. Meanwhile, as evidenced in this study, there continues to be support for a model incorporating both internal and regional influences to explain policy adoption by states. The theory of policy innovation and diffusion to predict the factors influencing the spread of policies and the use of Berry & Berry's (1990, 1999) Unified Model of State Policy Innovation prosper as their applicability to numerous public policy areas, including health care, are continually demonstrated. Similarly, event history analysis and specifically the Cox regression method continue to gain support as their value as analytical methods and appropriateness for use in public policy studies is repeatedly demonstrated.

The outlook for the future of the health care transparency movement looks promising. The health care transparency movement promotes improved access to information, patient empowerment, improved patient safety and quality of care, improved provider accountability, and lower health care costs. This movement is not a fad, but rather a permanent change being implemented in all health care settings across the United States. Improved health through reliable, accessible data and data-supported decisions is increasingly becoming the norm and less an idealistic scenario to be realized in the distant future.

This thesis is a history of the beginnings of nuclear research and education in India, between 1938 and 1959, through the trajectories of particle accelerator building activities at three institutions: the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, the Palit Laboratory of Physics, University Science College, Calcutta, later (Saha) Institute of Nuclear Physics, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. The two main arguments in this thesis are: First, the beginnings of nuclear research in India were rooted in the "modernist imperative" of the research field. However, post-war organisation of nuclear research came to be inextricably imbricated in processes of state-formation in independent India in a manner such that failure to actively engage with the bureaucratic state implied death of a laboratory project or constraints upon legitimately possible research. Second, state-formation, like the pursuit of nuclear research in India for the period of my study, became about India's participation and claim upon the universal. State-formation was equally a modernist imperative. Powerful sections of the nationalist bourgeoisie in India understood "Science" and the "State" as universals in World History, and India, they were convinced, had to confirm its place in history as an equal among equals. These two arguments combined explain how nuclear research came to be established, transformed, and extended through the gradual assembly of material infrastructure to realistically enable the new country take a capable decision on the nuclear question.

In 1991, India entered the global market as a liberalized economy when, coerced by the International Monetary Fund, it adopted “structural adjustment” policies. The early period of economic liberalization in India engendered a sense of optimism and forward-looking aspiration in the national imaginary and culture. This faith in novelty and change, for the urban middle-classes, was a result of the increase in incomes in white-collar jobs and the availability of greater choices in the commodity market for consumers. Thirty years later, the fantasy of wealth and abundance that was supposed to transform the country into a thriving superpower is visibly cracking. Social reality has not kept up with the promises afforded by economic liberalization. The increasing wealth gap and the dangerous marriage between neoliberalism and right-wing politics has created public culture of everyday violence, divisiveness, and despair. In this dissertation, I examine how recent mainstream Hindi cinema has responded to India's neoliberal turn. My work is based on the premise that the cinema of the past two decades is a record of social history. The major themes I focus on are the pervasiveness of neoliberal values into everyday life and work and the consequent formation of a neoliberal subjectivity. I also focus on how forms of neoliberal selfhood contend with existing social structures of caste, class, sexuality and religious identity in India. Finally, I lay out the interconnections between the recent rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India, popular cinema and neoliberal culture.

Halide Edib positioned herself as a main agent and figure of the Turkish nationalist movement, as both visionary and defender of her nation. Contributing to the evolving discourse on what it meant to be Turkish; Edib placed the family at the center of the state and identified women as state-builders. Through her interpretation of Turkish nationalism, I argue that Edib obscured the division between the public and private realm and classified women as agents in the creation of the Republic. I further contend that by doing this she contributed to the legitimization of Turkey on an international scale. This thesis focuses on the speeches Halide Edib delivered at the university Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi in 1935. These particular speeches are significant because they work towards a legitimization of Turkey, still in its infancy, as a nation, by addressing the "woman question." Halide Edib's view of a "new nation" and a "new woman" articulated in these speeches challenged contemporary views on women in a society at a political and cultural crossroads, overwhelmingly dominated by men.The power dynamics within the family and society at large are nuanced by Halide Edib's understanding of Turkish women's part in the national process during the formative years of the Turkish Republic. She depicted women as agents of nationalism and creators of the state. In doing this, she challenged both the ideological and applied position of women in the private realm, through her own discursive understanding of nationalism. Edib's definition of nationalism included the tenets of gender relations, family, and Islam and described each as a necessary component of a successful state.

Two images of British India persist in the modern imagination: first, an eighteenth-century world of incipient multiculturalism, of sexual adventure amidst the hazy smoke of hookah pipes; and second, the grandiose imperialism of the Victorian Raj, its vast public buildings and stiff upper lip. No art historian has focused on the intervening decades, however, or considered how the earlier period transitioned into the later. In contrast, Art in India's 'Age of Reform' sets out to develop a distinct historical identity for the decades between the Charter Act of 1813 and the 1858 Government of India Act, arguing that the art produced during this period was implicated in the political process by which the conquests of a trading venture were legislated and 'reformed' to become the colonial possessions of the British Nation. Over two parts, each comprised of two chapters, two overlooked media are connected to 'reforms' that have traditionally been understood as atrophying artistic production in the subcontinent. Part I relates amateur practice to the reform of the Company's civil establishment, using an extensive archive associated with the celebrated amateur Sir Charles D'Oyly (1781-1845) and an art society that he established called the Behar School of Athens (est.1824). It argues that rather than citing the Company's increasing bureaucratisation as the cause of a decline in fine art patronage, it is crucial instead to recognise how amateur practice shaped this bureaucracy's collective identity and ethos. Part II connects the production and consumption of illustrated print culture to the demographic shifts that occurred as a result of the repeal of the Company's monopolistic privileges in 1813 and 1833, focusing specifically on several costume albums published by artists such as John Gantz (1772-1853) and Colesworthy Grant (1813-1880). In doing so, it reveals how print culture provided cultural capital to a transnational middle class developing across the early-Victorian Empire of free trade. Throughout each chapter, the gradual undermining of the East India Company's sovereignty by a centralising British State is framed as a prerequisite to the emergence of the nation-state as the fundamental category of modern social and political organisation. Art in India's 'Age of Reform' therefore seeks not only to uncover the work and biographies of several unstudied artists in nineteenth-century India, but reveals the significance of this overlooked art history to both the development of the modern British State, and the consequent demise of alternative forms of political corporation.

This report is based on a field study that was carried out in India. The aim of this field study is to find out how the religious education is carried out at Jiva Public School in Faridabad. The questions that are tried to be answered are if the teachers at this school integrate religious education in some of their subjects, if they see any problems performing this kind of education and what attitudes teachers’ have towards religious education.

In the presentation of previous research, opinions of several international researchers regarding religious education and their thoughts about how a good religious education can be designed will be made.

The empirical material has been assembled by doing qualitative semi-structured interviews with teachers at the school mentioned above. This kind of method suits well the aim and questions since the focus will be on trying to understand these teachers way to reason and act. When describing the methods, other problems that can occur during a field study are presented.

The results are presented in text but also in diagrams, so that the reader can get a good overview. In the analysis and discussion the results will refer to the previous research.

While analysing the empirical material a result was that a majority of the teachers did not integrate religious education in some of their subjects. They did not see it as their task and they meant that it is less important to get absorbed about people’s different beliefs since India is a secular state. You should not give any religion preference so why should you discuss about religions in your teaching? The focus should instead be on acceptance and to teach the pupils to respect each other no matter what. The teachers that did integrate religion in their subjects did this by celebrating religious festivals within the school. Only two teachers practised “ordinary” lessons when teaching about religions.

Denna uppsats baseras på en fältstudie som har utförts i Indien. Syftet med fältstudien är att undersöka hur religionsundervisningen ser ut på Jiva Public School i Faridabad. Frågeställningarna som ska försöka besvaras är hur lärare på denna skola integrerar religionsundervisning i något av sina ämnen, om de kan se några problem med att utföra denna typ av undervisning och hur lärarnas inställning till religionsundervisning ser ut.

I avsnittet Tidigare forskning redovisas flera internationella forskares syn på just religionsundervisning och hur de tycker att bra religionsundervisning kan vara utformad.

Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare på ovannämnda skola. Denna metod passar syftet och frågeställningarna bäst eftersom fokus kommer att ligga på att försöka förstå dessa lärares sätt att diskutera och agera. I metodavsnittet kommer också andra relevanta problem man som forskare kan ställas inför då en fältstudie skall utföras att tas upp.

Resultatet presenteras i löpande text, men också med diagram för att göra det hela mer överskådligt samt lättförståeligt. I analys- och diskussionsavsnittet kommer resultatet att knytas till den tidigare forskningen.

Vid analysen av det empiriska materialet visade det sig att de flesta lärare inte integrerar religion i något av sina ämnen. Detta på grund av att de ansåg att det inte var deras uppgift. De menade också att det var mindre viktigt att fördjupa sig i vad andra människor har för trosuppfattning eftersom Indien är en sekulär stat. Ingen religion skall ha företräde och varför skall man då diskutera religion i sin undervisning? Istället borde fokus ligga på acceptans och att lära eleverna att bara respektera varandra utan vidare. De lärare som däremot integrerade religion i sina ämnen gjorde detta genom att fira olika religiösa högtider på skolan. Endast två lärare använde sig av ”traditionella” lektioner då de undervisade om religion.

The role risk taking has played in American history has helped shape current legislation concerning gambling. This thesis attempts to explain the discrepancies in legislation regarding distinct forms of gambling. While casinos are heavily regulated by state and federal laws, most statutes dealing with lotteries strive to regulate the activities of other parties instead of those of the lottery institutions. Incidentally, lotteries are the only form of gambling completely managed by the government. It can be inferred that the United States government is more concerned with people exploiting gambling than with the actual practice of wagering. In an effort to more fully understand the gambling debate, whether it should be allowed or banned, I examined different types of sources. Historical sources demonstrate how ingrained in American culture risk taking, the core of gambling, has been since the formation of this nation. Sources dealing with the economic implications of gambling were also studied. Additionally, sources dealings with the political and legal aspects of gambling were essential for this thesis. Legislature has tried to reconcile distinct problems associated with gambling, including corruption. For this reason sports gambling scandals and Mafia connections to gambling have also been examined. The American government has created much needed legislature to address different concerns relating to gambling. It is apparent that statutes will continue to be passed to help regulate the gambling industry. A possible consideration is the legalization of sports wagering to better regulate that sector of the industry.

The Hispanic phenomenon of the pronunciamiento, particularly prominent in nineteenth-century Mexico, is just one example of an insurrectionary political act that has contributed to the traditional portrait of chaos and disorder that has tainted much of our interpretation of the country‟s socio-political history. Once considered to be a violent, non-ideological, praetorian military act, recent studies reveal that the pronunciamiento was primarily a written petition that sought to further political proposals or address particular grievances through negotiation (albeit often backed by the threat of force). Although the military were largely the most visible leaders of the pronunciamiento, a plethora of political and civilian actors and interest groups partook in the practice with the intention of having their grievances/demands attended to by the national government. As well as being viewed as one of the causes of chronic instability, the pronunciamiento was also the primary mechanism employed to bring about tangible political changes throughout the country. At the local level of San Luis Potosí, the pronunciamiento seed also germinated and was used by all political groups and factions in their negotiations with local and national authorities alike. Local interests were often at the heart of these negotiations and so dictated the nature of the pronunciamiento in San Luis Potosí. This dissertation will explore and analyse the pronunciamiento practice, its origins, dynamics and nature, from the regional perspective of San Luis Potosí. Bearing in mind that the pronunciamiento was borne out of, and operated in a specific socio-political-economic context of constitutional disarray and transition, its analysis will also further our understanding of the broader socio-political culture not only of San Luis Potosí, but of Mexico in general. This in turn will contribute to the acknowledged need for reinterpretation and revaluation of the tumultuous period of early nineteenth-century Mexico. It will expose the period as an age of democratic revolutions; of intense political debate between emergent political groups and factions, who increasingly used the pronunciamiento to further an ideological stance, represent a spectrum of interests and force some kind of political change both at a national and regional level when all other constitutional options had been exhausted.

Réformes de décentralisation, gestion de l’eau, gestion des ordures ménagères, voirie, marché, état civil… : sous la Troisième République, l’aide au développement a pris pour objet la plupart des politiques ou des services qui comptent dans le processus de la reconstruction de l’institution communale, introduite par l’administration coloniale à la fin du XIXe siècle mais supprimée entre 1973 et 1993. L’enquête porte sur cette transnationalisation croissante et conjuguée de la politique de décentralisation et de l’action publique communale dans les années 1990 et 2000. Sur la base de matériaux archivistiques et ethnographiques, elle réinscrit ce processus dans le temps moyen du gouvernement colonial, examine ses modalités récentes et interroge ses effets sur le double plan de la figure de l’institution communale et de la capacité politique des communes, telles qu’elles se dessinent au centre, pour l’ensemble des communes, et à Diégo-Suarez, pour une commune urbaine en particulier. La thèse d’abord décrit le travail de production de l’aide et de l’action publique aux interfaces toujours plus nombreuses et fragmentaires entre organisations d’aide et administrations domestiques. Elle montre que l’aide s’est inscrite dans la division interne du travail administratif et politique de gouvernement, que se sont arrimées les luttes entre acteurs de l’aide et acteurs publics malgaches et les luttes domestiques entre acteurs politico-administratifs malgaches pour la maîtrise de l’action publique, que ces luttes sont réglées par une grammaire partagée de la décision souveraine sous régime d’aide. L’enquête montre par ailleurs le jeu répété et démultiplié de l’aide s’est traduit par la prééminence acquise progressivement dans la reconstruction de la commune, à l’échelle nationale comme à l’échelle locale, par d’élites politico-administratives malgaches qui cumulent, diachroniquement ou symboliquement, des positions dans l’aide et des positions dans les administrations publiques. Ce sont des élites qui incarnent, légitiment et défendent la transnationalisation de l’action publique. Elle montre enfin que les édiles municipaux d’une ville comme Diégo-Suarez se sont bien engagées dans des stratégies de construction de leur capacité d’action sur la mise en dépendance à l’égard de l’aide. Mais que, si les interventions d’aide ont affecté la figure de l’institution communale, le fonctionnement même de l’organisation municipale, c’est sans accroître significativement sa capacité politique. Rien ne s’institutionnalise véritablement de l’accès des acteurs municipaux aux ressources qui leur permettraient de décider et d’agir en conséquence
Decentralization reforms, water management, household waste management, roads, markets, civil status, etc.: under the Third Republic, development aid focused on most of the policies or services that count in the process of rebuilding the municipal institution, introduced by the colonial administration at the end of the 19th century but abolished between 1973 and 1993. The survey focuses on this increasing and combined transnationalisation of decentralisation policy and municipal public action in the 1990s and 2000s. On the basis of archival and ethnographic materials, it re-establishes this process in the average time of the colonial government, examines its recent modalities and questions its effects on the dual level of the figure of the communal institution and the political capacity of the communes, as they appear in the centre, for all the communes, and in Diego Suarez, for a particular urban commune. The thesis first describes the work of aid production and public action at the increasingly numerous and fragmented interfaces between aid organisations and domestic administrations. It shows that aid has become part of the internal division of administrative and political work of government, that the struggles between Malagasy aid and public actors and the domestic struggles between Malagasy political and administrative actors for the control of public action have been established, that these struggles are regulated by a shared grammar of sovereign decision-making under the aid regime. The survey also shows that the repeated and multiplied play of aid has resulted in the pre-eminence gradually acquired in the reconstruction of the municipality, at both national and local level, by Malagasy political and administrative elites who cumulate, diachronically or symbolically, positions in aid and positions in public administrations. They are elites who embody, legitimize and defend the transnationalization of public action. Finally, it shows that the municipal councils of a city like Diego Suarez have been well engaged in strategies to build their capacity to act on aid dependency. But that, if the aid interventions have affected the figure of the communal institution, the very functioning of the municipal organization, it is without significantly increasing its political capacity. Nothing is truly institutionalized about the access of municipal actors to the resources that would allow them to decide and act accordingly

This thesis tries to build a set of theoretical and empirical premises of the important issues pertaining to a decentralized government structure. While the questions that we attempt to answer in this thesis are varied, the common theme that runs through the essays is its focus on issues from a regional perspective. Our empirical outcomes are based on the Indian federal system, more specifically, the 15 major states of India, which account for over 90 per cent of the population and 95 per cent of GDP. The period under consideration is 1985 - 2000. We consider this to be a crucial period because a lot of stress in state finances emerged during this period. The research questions we broadly seek to answer are the following: 1. What are the causes of differences in developmental levels across the major Indian states? 2. What is the role of political alignment in determining the budgetary considerations of states? 3. What accounts for differences in human developmental outcomes across the states? 4. In normative terms, can it be argued that a decentralized structure need not automatically lead to the iformation of a hard budget constraint? Further, can it be claimed that under certain circumstances, particularly when dealing with State-run natural monopolies, that a soft budget constraint may lead to better outcomes? The starting point of our analysis or the first essay (Chapter 2) deals with the question as to why have Indian states had different levels of development and growth? The existing literature argues that states, which have followed better policies in terms of macroeconomic probity and identification of developmental issues, have had better outcomes, which we feel is an inherently circular argument. The existing literature does not answer the basic issue of what prompted certain states to follow better policies? We add to the burgeoning literature on growth in Indian states, by looking at institutional quality. We argue that some states in India have better institutions than others, and these have set better policies. We suggest that the level of political accountability and the quantum of 'point resources' such as minerals would have an impact on the quality of institutions. The idea being that a region can be 'cursed' with high mineral wealth and having unaccountable politicians. This can lead the politician to try to subvert institutional quality in these regions to facilitate 'rent seizing', leading to lower developmental and growth prospects for such states. We try to prove this through a theoretical model as well as an empirical exercise. The second essay (Chapter 3) is more empirical in its construct and analyses the impact of political affiliations and the quality of fiscal institutions on regional budget constraints. While we do not make any normative judgments here regarding the welfare implications of soft budgets, we argue that the correct political alignment and poor fiscal institutions might combine to lead a state to greater fiscal profligacy. This is because of the inability to have institutional checks on expenditures and due to a higher probability of an ex post bailout by the central government, through higher ad hoc transfers. The third essay (Chapter 4) considers not merely ' budgetary output' levels such as the quantum of expenditures, in isolation, but looks at the 'outcomes' of such expenditures, viz. the impact of expenditure on health on an 'outcome' indicator like Infant Mortality Rates (IMR). across the major Indian states. We argue that analyzing the budgetary allocations on any expenditure tells us merely half the story. Since the Indian states are constitutionally required to spend more on human development expenditures such as health and education as compared to the central government, the correct way to look at 'effective' expenditure would be to analyse the determinants of variation in 'outcome' indicators. We in our essay, consider variations in IMR to be our measure of 'outcomes'. We suggest that political accountability might have a major role in determining human developmental outcome levels through better utilization of expenditures. Since we argued in the second essay that the potentially harmful impact of poor fiscal institutions and political alignment, is softening of the budget constraint, our final essay (Chapter 5) is a theoretical piece of work, which looks at the micro-foundations of a 'soft budget constraint' and tries to analyse the normative issue of the welfare considerations in this regard. We try to prove two concomitant factors in the federalism and soft budget literature. First, contrary to some of the existing literature, decentralization, need not automatically increase a commitment to the hard budget and second, in normative terms, under certain circumstances, a 'soft budget' is preferable to a 'hard budget'.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Economics, 2004.

The Coast Reservation of Oregon was established under Executive Order of President Franklin Pierce in November, 1855, as a homeland for the southern Oregon tribes. It was an immense, isolated wilderness, parts of which had burned earlier in the century. There were some prairies where farming was possible, but because the reservation system itself and farming, particularly along the coast, were unknown entities, life for the Indians was a misery for years. Those responsible for the establishment of the reservation were subject to the vagaries of the weather, the wilderness, the Congress, and the Office of Indian Affairs. Agents were accountable, not only for the lives of Oregon Indians, but also for all of the minute details involved in answering to a governmental agency. Some of the agents were experienced with the tribes of western Oregon; others were not. All of them believed that the only way to keep the Indians from dying out was to teach them the European American version of agriculturalism. Eventually, if possible, Oregon Indians would be assimilated into the dominant culture. Most agents held out little hope for the adults of the tribes. This thesis lays out the background for the development of United States Indian policies. European Americans' ethnocentric ideas about what constituted civilization became inextricably woven into those policies. Those policies were brought in their infant stage to Oregon. Thus, the work on the reservations was experimental, costing lives and destroying community. How those policies were implemented on the Coast Reservation from 1856-1877 concludes this study.
Graduation date: 2000
Best scan available for photos. Original is a black and white photocopy.

As Colin Calloway has noted, American Indians have been accorded a “minimal and negative role” in historical memories of the American Revolution because – according to popular mythology – they “chose the wrong side and lost.”1 Such memories are, I argue, at least partially the result of the failure of United States Indian policies and diplomacy during the war. An examination of the Journals of the Continental Congress reveals that these policies were predicated upon the racialized notion that Indians were ‘savages’ that should be ‘civilized’ and assimilated into American society. Such policies were, I argue, the product of processes of national identity formation. In the early years of the war, American leaders eager to form a new national identity separate from that of their British ‘oppressors’ began to identify themselves with Indians as natives of the same land and thus sought to bring them into the fold of the new nation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Indians’ attempts to preserve their own culture and independence in the face of these policies were met largely with resentment by American leaders. By doing so Indians had, American leaders believed, rejected ‘civilization.’ They were thus ‘unworthy’ of inclusion in the American nation. The removal policies that arose in the wake of the Revolution were, I argue, partially an outgrowth of this belief. By removing Indians westward, American leaders could push them out of both sight and mind while conveniently forgetting their own diplomatic failures during the war. In the process, they positioned Indians in popular American memories of the Revolutionary War as ‘savages’ that ‘chose the wrong side and lost.’
Introduction : the wrong side : a historiography of Indians' involvement in the American Revolution -- We may become one people : the evolution of Congressional Indian policies -- The same island is our common mother : diplomacy on the Revolutionary frontier -- Civilization or death to all savages : Congress's war on the frontier -- By the aid of the full blooded natives : Indians' war for independence -- Epilogue : a civilized people : a digital analysis of the Indian Removal Act's Revolutionary inheritances.
Department of History

This dissertation contends that efforts to reduce air pollution in Birmingham, Alabama, from the 1940s through the early 1970s relied on citizens who initially resisted federal involvement but eventually realized that they needed Washington's help. These activists had much in common with clean air groups in other U.S. cities, but they were somewhat less successful because of formidable industrial opposition. In the 1940s the political power of the Alabama coal industry kept Birmingham from following the example of cities that switched to cleaner-burning fuels. The coal industry's influence on Alabama politics had waned somewhat by the late 1960s, but U.S. Steel and its allies wielded enough political power in 1969 to win passage of a weak air pollution law over one favored by activists. Throughout this period the federal government gradually increased its involvement in Alabama's air pollution politics, culminating in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the enactment of environmental laws that empowered federal officials to pressure Alabama to pass a revised 1971 air pollution law that met national standards. After the passage of this law, but before the appointment of an air pollution control board to enforce it, a federal judge temporarily shut down Birmingham-area industries at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, the first time that the agency had used such emergency powers. Over time, grassroots activists in Birmingham came to the realization that their efforts were doomed to fail, or at least to be significantly delayed, without the aid of the federal government. For nearly twenty-five years after the enactment of the 1945 smoke ordinance, supporters of air pollution control wanted the state government to deal with the problem of air pollution, with the federal government only providing technical expertise and funding for scientific research. But with their defeat in the 1969 legislative session, when the industry-backed air pollution bill passed, clean air campaigners in Alabama realized--and publicly stated--that only pressure from Washington would force Montgomery to clean up Alabama's air.

Despite the general academic consensus that liberal democracy has triumphed over communism, Marxist-inspired movements continue to thrive across the global south. This is a curious phenomenon in the post-Cold War era. This paper explores the recent growth of both The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Naxalite-Maoist Insurgency in India, and compares the two groups. It analyzes the factors that have led to their resurgence, in particular, the political and economic dimensions. Specifically, it addresses the impact of two dominant factors in fomenting their resurgence: neo-liberalism and political exclusion. First, recent growth of both groups seems to correlate with the adoption of neo-liberal economic policies and progressively draconian structural adjustments, which aggravated existing poverty and inequality, in their respective countries. Second, recent growth of both groups seems to correlate with political exclusion of marginalized groups, an exclusion increasingly enforced by state violence. The survival and growth of Marxist-inspired armed movements across the globe also raises important questions about the future of liberal democracy. This paper asks whether the persistence of Marxist-inspired movements across the global south has given the lie to the "end of history" theory, and what their resurgence says, if anything, about the "clash of civilizations theory. It concludes that the success of these movements challenges the apparent triumph of liberal democracy in both Colombia and India, and perhaps in the post-Cold War era globally.