Suchergebnisse

Excerpted from the forthcoming book entitled, "Political opposition and dissent," edited by Barbara McLennan.

Chapter translated from the book entitled "Gesellschaft und Democratie in Deutschland.".

Comprising case studies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, this edited volume explores the key characteristics of democratic governance in Northeast Asia. Each democracy is assessed on the extent to which it enables the flourishing of social capital; prioritizes the interests of all as characterized by freedom from fear and want; and empowers all to participate in the democratic process and governance. With particular focus on the experience of minorities, this volume contends that the acid test of democratic governance is not how well the government represents the interests of the elites, or even the majority, but rather how it cares for the needs of vulnerable groups in society.

Die vorliegende Arbeit setzt sich mit der Beziehung von Zivilreligion und Politik in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika auseinander. Ausgehend von Robert Bellahs Prämisse von Amerikanischer Zivilreligion, aus dem Jahre 1967, wird festgestellt, dass es sich bei dem Zivilreligions-Konzept um ein modifizierbares Konzept handelt, welches Politiker und Politikerinnen, insbesondere Präsidenten und Präsidentinnen, innerhalb der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika ihren Zwecken, sowie der Zeit entsprechend transformieren können. Der Feststellung liegt, neben einer Untersuchung der Ursprünge von Zivilreligion in Bezug auf Amerika, sowie der Erforschung thematischer Übereinstimmungen in der Theoriedebatte über den Zivilreligions-Begriff im Kontext US-Amerikanischer Politik, eine Analyse von Offenbarungen zivilreligiöser Form in der politisch-religiösen Rhetorik der Präsidenten George W. Bush und Barack Obama zu Grunde. Anhand eine Untersuchung dieser Offenbarungen, sowie einer Erforschung der Aspekte von Zivilreligion, welche in der US-Amerikanischen Öffentlichkeit zu tragen kommen, wird gezeigt, dass Zivilreligion tatsächlich ein wandelbares Konzept ist, welches als religiöse Dimension in der Politik der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika auftritt und sich über die Jahre bereits mehrmals gewandelt hat und im einundzwanzigsten Jahrhundert abermals eine Veränderung erfährt. Zusätzlich dazu, kommt die Arbeit, sowie jene Gelehrte, die sich mit dem Konzept von Zivilreligion auseinander gesetzt haben und ihm Rahmen dieser Arbeit erwähnt wurden, wie u.a. Robert Bellah, zu dem Schluss, dass es sich bei Zivilreligion um einen der US-Amerikanischen Gesellschaft zu Grunde liegenden Glauben handelt. Dieser Glaube ist mit dem Amerikanischen Selbstverständnis verbunden und in US-Amerikanischer Politik als religiöse Dimension institutionalisiert. ; The thesis at hand deals with the connection between civil religion and politics in the United States of America. Based on Robert Bellahs proposal of an American civil religion in 1967, the thesis states that the civil religion concept is a modifiable one. As such, politicians, especially presidents, in the United States of America, can use civil religion according to their own purposes and the current zeitgeist. An exploration of the origins of civil religion and an investigation of common aspects in the civil religion theory debate, both in the U.S. American context, serve as parameters for the statement. In addition, the statement is based on the analysis of civil religious manifestations in the political rhetoric of the presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. With the help of the manifestations analysis, as well as an examination of the civil religious aspects that appear in the private sphere of the United States of America, the thesis shows that civil religion is indeed a modifiable concept and has manifested itself as a religious dimension of U.S. American politics. Furthermore, the thesis shows that civil religion has changed throughout the years and is experiencing change in the twenty-first century once more. Additionally, the thesis reaches the same conclusion as the scholars, such as Robert Bellah, whose ideas were discussed in the scope of this thesis; namely, that civil religion is an underlying belief system of the U.S. American civil society. As such, civil religion is closely linked to the U.S. American self-perception and has become an institutionalised dimension of the political sphere. ; vorgelegt von Lisa Konrad ; Abweichender Titel laut Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des Verfassers ; Zsfassungen in dt. und engl. Sprache ; Graz, Univ., Dipl.-Arb., 2015 ; (VLID)773262

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1 Introduction: The Study of Soviet Leadership -- The Institutional Basis of Elite Politics -- References -- Chapter 2 Oligarchy with a Predominant Leader, 1917-22 -- Institutional Fluidity -- Dynamics of Conflict Within the Collective -- The Shape of Elite Consensus -- Personalized Politics -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 3 Rule by Pure Oligarchy, 1923-29 -- Strategies of Factional Conflict -- Appeal to Authority -- Role of Policy -- Mobilization of Institutions -- On Factions -- The Dynamics of Opposition -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 4 From the Predominant to the Dominant Leader, 1930-53 -- Oligarchy with a Predominant Leader, 1930-34 -- Institutional Context -- The Norms of Leadership Politics -- The Leader Dominant and Involved, 1935-41 -- The Institutional Arena -- Norms of Leadership Politics -- Dominant Leader Within the Collective, 1941-45 -- Dominant, but Distant, 1945-53 -- Institutional Contours -- The Norms of Leadership Politics -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5 The Limits of the Predominant Leader, 1953-64 -- The Elite Consensus -- The Post-Stalin Elite -- Undermining Collectivism -- The Achilles Heel of Leadership Predominance -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 6 Predominant Leader Within the Collective, 1964-82 -- Development of a Brezhnev Faction? -- Norms of Elite Politics -- Institutional Contours of Elite Politics -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 7 Collectivism Collapses, 1982-91 -- The Interregnum: Andropov and Chernenko -- Gorbachev and the Collapse of Collective Leadership -- A Gorbachev Faction? -- The Strategy of the Predominant Leader -- Mode of Opposing the Predominant Leader -- Destruction of the Institutions of Collective Leadership -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 8 Conclusion -- Formal Norms -- Informal Norms.

When the Brazilian public intellectual Marcia Tiburi published How to Talk to a Fascist in 2015, fascism was yet to return to the public consciousness. But Tiburi was motivated by the kind of fascism she was noticing in daily life - people who fail to practise any kind of reflection about society, betraying a pattern of everyday thought characterized by the repetition of cliches and the angry language of hatred. Three years later, Brazil elected the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Now available in English for the first time, this prescient work speaks to our present moment. Fascism is among us once again, evident in the collective expression of exacerbated authoritarianism and the growing hatred against difference and people marked as socially undesirable. Drawing on her own first-hand, brutal encounters, Tiburi connects ways of thinking in Brazil to what is happening around us today and introduces us to the fascist as manipulator, the distorter of other people's speech; fascist as an activist of evil on a daily basis, the one who lives by fostering racism and male-domination and is proud of it. Tiburi takes us beyond formal policies, reinvigorates ideas from the Frankfurt School and refuses to otherize supporters of fascism. Instead she asks what is amiss in their lives that then attracts them to a political project that victimizes them. This powerful book forces us to consider to our actions at a subjective level and changes our way of thinking through issues of hate and divisiveness pervading politics everywhere

This dissertation examines how U.S. foreign policy shaped the origins and expansion of Middle East studies and expertise. For over sixty years the United States has considered the area called the "Middle East" to be vital to its national security interests, and governmental and academic institutions have been essential pillars in support of this policy. America's involvement in the Middle East has matched its rise as a global superpower and I argue that U.S. foreign policy significantly influenced the production and professionalization of knowledge about the region. I demonstrate that passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 ultimately led to the growth and diversification of the field. Moreover, my dissertation contends that an unintended consequence of this expansion was strained relations between academia and the government, which contributed to and was compounded by decreased federal funding for area studies. By the late and post-Cold War periods, I assert that these factors led to a perceived decline in the field while private think tanks garnered increased attention and influence.Drawing on research completed at national, university, and foundation archives, I explain how key governmental and non-governmental institutions collaborated to promote Middle East studies and expertise. I examine early American attempts to produce contemporary regional expertise through different wartime agencies and programs during the First and Second World Wars. In particular, I focus on the Inquiry, a group of scholars created to help President Woodrow Wilson prepare for the Versailles Peace Conference, as well as the Office of Strategic Services and the Army Specialized Training Program. I assert that the example of these initial efforts and their alumni helped establish the institutional precursors for the development of area studies. During and after the Cold War, I analyze how the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency coordinated with the Middle East studies programs at Princeton and Harvard and supported the American Universities of Beirut and Cairo. I also discuss the coordination of private foundations and academic societies with governmental agencies as well as their funding and support of area studies programs before and after the NDEA. This includes the activities of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the Social Science Research Council, and the American Council of Learned Societies. I conclude that different regimes of knowledge production and cultures of expertise related to the Middle East have emerged over the past century. While these regimes have often intersected and competed for supremacy, I contend that U.S. foreign policy interests and goals have had a predominant influence on the contested ways knowledge is produced, communicated, and consumed. I demonstrate that the terminology and associated geographical representations inherent in U.S. foreign policy discourse has been adopted and promulgated by academic scholarship on the Middle East. Thus, revealing that even when Washington's policies are contested by area experts its interests have already been subsumed into existing discourse on the region. While university-based Middle East studies were successful in expanding and enhancing the U.S.'s knowledge about the region and producing potential candidates for government service, I assert that the foreign policy and intelligence establishments developed their own processes for collecting and analyzing information and trends which benefited from but were independent of academic scholarship on the Middle East. Furthermore, I argue that think tanks emerged at the expense of university-based Middle East studies programs by actively pursuing research agendas in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region.

Background: Iraq is a higher middle-income country with a GDP of $223.5 billion (as of 2014). In the 1970s and 1980s, an extensive network of primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities was built, and the country recorded some of the best health indicators in the Middle East. However, two decades of conflict (both inter- and intra-state), sanctions and poor planning have reversed many of the previous gains. In the aftermath of the 2003 war, the government of Iraq introduced a Basic Health Services Package (BHSP) with a user fee component. International actors often advocate BHSPs as a means of rapidly scaling-up services in health systems that are devastated by conflict. User fees have also been promoted as a way of raising revenue to enhance the financial sustainability of healthcare systems in such contexts. While Iraq is a conflict-affected state, it has retained an extensive healthcare infrastructure and has a ministry of health with considerable financial and administrative capacity. In such a context, the introduction of a BHSP is a notable and distinctive feature of health policy in this setting, and the process through which this occurred have not yet been examined. Aim: To explore the processes through which the BHSP was conceived and designed in Iraq. It compares Iraq's BHSP with similar policies in other post-conflict settings. It examines the roles of domestic and external actors and models in the policy's conception and design. It explores the preferences of internal and external actors about the financing of service delivery through user fees. The study also examines the extent of policy transfer in the formulation of Iraq's BHSP. Methodology: The thesis utilises a qualitative case study approach, incorporating analysis of semi-structured elite interviews and documents. Twenty Skype, phone, and face-to- face interviews were conducted between January 2013 and August 2014. Interviewees included former ministers of health, directors of departments of health, academics and officials at donor agencies, bilateral and multi-lateral bodies and consultancies. Documents included 47 official government publications, evaluations, reports, policy briefs and assessments. Literature review: A search of the literature on health policy making in post-conflict and fragile settings identified three key gaps in existing evidence; first, there is a dearth of published work examining health policy in post-conflict Iraq. Second, the literature focuses mainly on the impact of policy action in post-conflict contexts, largely neglecting the processes through which those policies are introduced. Third, while the literature concentrates on the roles of external actors, it pays limited attention to the role of domestic actors and politics. Results: Iraq's BHSP shares commonalities with the other selected countries (Uganda, Afghanistan, and Liberia) in its primary aims, influential actors, interventions included or excluded, and financing principles. However, Iraq's BHSP also aims at broader, and longer-term, structural reform, while the BHSP in other countries is often motivated by short-term objectives. The MoH in Iraq also appears to assume a prominent role in this case relative to others. Also, Iraq's BHSP includes a greater number of interventions compared to the other countries. The Iraq war of 2003 offered the opportunity for wide-ranging structural change in the healthcare system. External actors, especially the WHO, were influential in advocating for a BHSP drawing on the recent experience of a similar initiative in what was in some ways the similar context of Afghanistan. However, the removal of former politicians and the emergence of internal policy actors with considerable technical and financial capacity allowed the domestic authorities to debate, dispute and challenge the recommendations of external actors. Relatedly, some of the internationally distinctive features of the BHSP in Iraq, including user fees, are similar to those that exist elsewhere in the health system. Most interviewees agreed that the BHSP was a means of enhancing financial sustainability and that it would help to enhance efficiency by targeting resources at population health need. The BHSP, according to some, represented the categories of healthcare that the government should finance, while allowing the private sector to meet demand for other services. However, many domestic actors supported the introduction of user fees as part of the BHSP. Several external actors either distanced themselves from this decision or declared no position, claiming that this was properly a matter for the government of Iraq. Discussion: While the BHSP's 'label' is new in the context of Iraq, its substantive content is not. The BHSP can be seen as the outcome of the combination of old (existing) technologies and instruments presented in new (and introduced) ways. The existing health system offered ideas, techniques and processes that were maintained and reproduced even if these were packaged in new ways, to create a policy framework which is genuinely novel. External experts highlighted the idea of the BHSP and provided models (such as Afghanistan) on which the policy could be based. Internal decision-makers, however, were active players in policy formulation, not passive recipients who did not question or modify the policy during the process of transfer. On the contrary, it seems that the latter exerted considerable influence. User fees represent one aspect of that continuity. Ownership of policies by ministries of health in post-conflict is often advocated. However, such involvement introduces the potential for replicating old structures and policies, and may result in a degree of policy incoherence. Policy ideas are likely to change significantly where there is considerable local engagement in policy design and implementation.

So far, studies of Swedish 20th-century social policy have emphasized the differences between the voluntary aid common around 1900 and the solidarity of welfare policy at mid-century. Means tests have been described as central instruments in the voluntary social work, while the welfare state was built on general principles of care. The question is, however, if the differences between the earlier and later forms of social policy can be characterized in such simple terms. A comparison has been made of departure points found in the social policies of the two periods. The results confirm that a significantly new way of thinking had taken shape in the years around the Second World War, but the study also shows that that the ideas concerning the welfare state contain threads that can be traced back to the scientific philanthropy of a few years earlier. The idea of social engineering was nothing new, and the idea that rights could be exchanged for duties had still not been deserted in the 1940s. In conclusion it can be said that the welfare state and the welfare politics of solidarity in several respects were built upon the principles of care that were formulated in about 1900.

AbstractWhile there is widespread agreement in the ministerial promotion and resignation literature that experience matters, experience has typically been defined as the length of time a legislator has worked in politics or served in a legislature. This approach fails to account for the different kinds of experience legislators accumulate as they progress through their political careers prior to appointment to cabinet. We demonstrate how researchers can use sequence and cluster analysis to obtain a more complete understanding of ministerial appointment. We identify four data-driven archetypes of political careers in Canada for the period 1968–2015. We find that MPs with diverse political careers are more likely to be appointed to cabinet, while MPs with opposition experience are more successful than MPs with government experience. We also find that parliamentary secretary is not necessarily a stepping stone to a full cabinet position, calling into question traditional conceptions of parliamentary politics as a 'ladder'.