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Printed by the Pelican Press. ; I. The need of freedom.-- II. Of government.-- III. Of capital and labour.-- IV. Of the man in the street.-- V. Of machinery.-- VI. Of love of country.-- VII. Of the freedom of women.-- VIII. Of children.-- IX. Of the ideal. ; Mode of access: Internet.

International audience ; This article focuses on the development of consumer culture and specifically the notion of consumer freedom in the transitional society of Estonia. Drawing on the work of Zygmunt Bauman and Don Slater as well as the notion of 'transition culture' proposed by Michael Kennedy, it investigates the importance of western goods and western notions of consumer choice in anchoring emerging conceptions of individual freedom in post-socialist countries. This theme is explored through an analysis of a consumer item with a particularly high sign value in Estonia: the mobile phone. The analysis details the transformation discourses around freedom in print advertisements for mobile telephony from 1991-2001, demonstrating how over this period the meaning of freedom as a value shifted from political and economic conceptions to an individualized discourse of consumer choice emphasizing hedonism, self-expression and leisure.

It is hard to appreciate freedom until you experience losing it. It may be difficult for someone born in a democracy to understand, but it's somewhat like comparing what a wild bird feels when locked in a cage, as opposed to a bird born in captivity that regards a cage as its natural environment. When I am asked about academic freedom in Iraq, it is this parallel that leaps to mind. As a former lecturer at the University of Baghdad who has recently completed a PhD in the UK, I have felt the difference acutely.

The UK government's attempt to "prevent" terrorism and extremism in the university sector is rightly seen as an intolerant threat to academic freedom. However, this development has not come from a "right wing" authoritarian impulse, but rather, replicates many of the discussions already taking place in universities about the need to protect "vulnerable" students from offensive and dangerous ideas. Historically, the threat to academic freedom came from outside the university, from pressures exerted from governments, from religious institutions who oversaw a particular institution or from the demands of business. Alternatively it has been seen as something that is a particular problem in non-Western countries that do not have democracy. While some of these problems and pressures remain, there is a more dangerous threat to academic freedom that comes from within universities, a triumvirate of a relativistic academic culture, a new body of identity-based student activists and a therapeutically oriented university management, all three of which have helped to construct universities as safe spaces for the newly conceptualized "vulnerable student." With reference to the idea of vulnerability, this chapter attempts to chart and explain these modern developments.

The article analyzes the relationship between freedom and happiness, in particular whether freedom makes people happy. The problem of freedom and happiness in the modern world affects the life of every person. Utilitarians argue that freedom, understood as the absence of constraints, increases people's happiness, as J. S. Mill argued in On Liberty. More recently there have been a number of empirical studies examining whether happiness levels are higher in societies that have more liberty. These studies are critically examined and some of the difficulties of establishing whether it is liberty or some other closely-related phenomena, such as democracy or development, that cause happiness are discussed. The article presents data from Freedom House and the Happy Planet Index to attempt to determine the effect of liberty on happiness. This enables us to determine the place of freedom in the hierarchy of values and understand its place in society and its significance for the individual.

What understanding of freedom does the EU freedom to conduct business protect? This article distinguishes between two understandings of freedom – freedom as non-interference and freedom as non-domination, and argues that both the text of Article 16 of the Charter and the pre-Charter case law suggest an understanding of freedom as non-domination. However, in recent case law, the Court appears to have move towards an understanding of freedom as non-interference. This article highlights the implications of such a move for national democracies.

Breathe Freedom: A drawing, an action, a short work made live. On the columns of free speech below Breathing in and out (box accordion catches its breath). Charcoal drawn text on cloth. Blue tears blinding both eyes preventing clear sight. To make a visual protest against declining democracies and political power moving to the pull of market economies and the far right. Lisson Gallery, in association with ArtReview Live, hosted an entire evening of rapid-fire talks, films and performances staged on Ai Weiwei's work, Fondation, a platform made from the ruins of ancient columns. In the open spirit of the Roman forum or Greek agora, speakers discussed the issues of borders, identity and people's role in politics.

Corruption over the past decade has emerged as one of the most important issues of economic success in the developing world. During this time several articles and publications have cited media freedom as a closely related component to the fighting of corruption, citing public scrutiny and political incentives as the main arguments. Despite these voices, several criticisms have questioned the validity of these stated relationships and have countered with arguments that condemn the measuring tools and indices used for the analysis of corruption. This paper has investigated the relationship that free media has in the fighting of corruption in the developing world, and the strength of the indices used to measure these components. This study also included political freedom as an additional explanatory variable to investigate the importance of other social freedoms on corruption. Using several different indices from several institutions, this paper has found that although different in their approaches, many of these measuring tools come to the same conclusion about the levels of corruption, political freedom and media freedom around the world, a fact that rejects the former criticisms. Furthermore, this paper through a regression analysis shows that media indeed has a very strong non-linear relationship to corruption and can be more robustly seen after a certain threshold. With the newly found confidence in the measuring tools, and strong empirical evidence that media freedom is an important component to anti-corruption efforts, this paper offers some policy strategies that could help apply this relationship. ; Media freedom, Corruption, Economic development ; A Thesis submitted to the International Affairs Program in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Honors in the Major. ; Spring Semester, 2011. ; April 14, 2011.

Corruption over the past decade has emerged as one of the most important issues of economic success in the developing world. During this time several articles and publications have cited media freedom as a closely related component to the fighting of corruption, citing public scrutiny and political incentives as the main arguments. Despite these voices, several criticisms have questioned the validity of these stated relationships and have countered with arguments that condemn the measuring tools and indices used for the analysis of corruption. This paper has investigated the relationship that free media has in the fighting of corruption in the developing world, and the strength of the indices used to measure these components. This study also included political freedom as an additional explanatory variable to investigate the importance of other social freedoms on corruption. Using several different indices from several institutions, this paper has found that although different in their approaches, many of these measuring tools come to the same conclusion about the levels of corruption, political freedom and media freedom around the world, a fact that rejects the former criticisms. Furthermore, this paper through a regression analysis shows that media indeed has a very strong non-linear relationship to corruption and can be more robustly seen after a certain threshold. With the newly found confidence in the measuring tools, and strong empirical evidence that media freedom is an important component to anti-corruption efforts, this paper offers some policy strategies that could help apply this relationship. ; Media freedom, Corruption, Economic development ; A Thesis submitted to the International Affairs Program in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Honors in the Major. ; Spring Semester, 2011. ; April 14, 2011.

Treball Final de Màster Universitari Internacional en Estudis de Pau, Conflictes i Desenvolupament. Codi: SAA074. Curs: 2013/2014 ; Freedom of speech and press freedom are key foundations of all human rights as stipulated in human rights declaration of 1948. Denying people the right to free speech is keeping them away from what is happening in this world, thus, hindering them from participating in decision making. While speech freedom and press freedom are key tools to measure if a country is democratically or despotically run, the right to freedom of expression in Rwanda is casualty of the horrible history of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in which media played a great deal. Using an explanatory research design and a non probability sampling with various qualitative methods such as interviews, personal observations and discourse analysis, the study confirmed a clear collaboration between the government and hate media in perpetrating the genocide. Research findings from both the field study and literature say the government having purposely manipulated media, and consequently inducing them in fuelling the genocide. Despite that shared responsibility between the government and media, only journalists and ordinary citizens are paying the price. In an endeavour to protect the society from the recidivism of the genocide, the Government of Rwanda (GoR) instituted a number of laws including the genocide ideology law and media laws, all of which castigate discrimination and sectarianism. Human rights organizations and activists, political opponents, media and some ordinary citizens quickly started to accuse these laws of being tools for the government to silence its critics while masquerading as perpetrators of national security. Field research findings and the rich literature of the study, however, suggest that only open debates, both public and in media, can protect national security and till respect people's rights of free speech and press freedom.

Freedom in nations can affect the happiness of citizens both positively and negatively. This study takes stock of the balance of effects. It considers 1) whether there is a positive net-effect at all, 2) which freedom variants contribute most to happiness 3) in what conditions. Freedom is conceived as chance to choose, requiring 'opportunity' to choose, and 'capability' to choose. Opportunity to choose is measured by absence of restrictions in economic, political and personal life. Capability to choose is measured by information and inclination to go one's own way. Happiness is conceived as the overall appreciation of ones life as a whole. Average happiness in nations is measured by responses to questions on the matter in representative surveys. Data on both freedom and happiness is available for 46 nations in the early 1990's. Analysis shows first of all positive correlations between freedom and happiness. Yet closer analysis reveals that freedom and happiness do not always concur.Freedom is positively related to happiness among rich nations, but not among poor nations. Apparently freedom does not pay in poverty. Further, freedom is related to happiness only when 'opportunity' and 'capability' coincide.A notable exception is economic freedom. Opportunity for free trade is positively related to happiness in poor nations, but not in rich nations. Similarly, the relation between economic freedom and happiness is strongest in nations where capability to choose is lowest. The findings show that freedom does not always breed happiness, and suggest that economic freedom deserves priority.

After presenting a critique of both negative and positive freedom this essay pursues the relation between creativity and freedom, drawing upon Foucault, Deleuze and Nietzsche to do so. Once you have understood Nietzsche's reading of a culturally infused nest of drives in a self, the task becomes easier. A drive is not merely a force pushing forward; it is also a simple mode of perception and intention that pushes forward and enters into creative relations with other drives when activated by an event. You can also understand more sharply how the Foucauldian tactics of the self work. We can now carry this insight into the Deleuzian territory of micropolitics and collective action by reviewing his work on flashbacks and "the powers of the false." If a flashback in film pulls us back to a bifurcation point where two paths were possible and one was taken, the powers of the false refer to the subliminal role the path not taken can play in the formation of creative action. As you pursue these themes you see that neither old, organic notions of belonging to the world nor do negative notions of detachment as such do the work needed. Deleuze's notion of freedom carries us to the idea of cultivating "belief" in a world of periodic punctuations. The latter are essential to creativity and incompatible with organic belonging. They are also indispensable supports of a positive politics today.

This paper deals with Rousseau's idea of freedom in terms of rationality and deliberation. It gives support to Berlin's interpretation of the general will as a rational and objective will but dismisses the idea that Rousseau's theory necessarily leads to authoritarianism. The general will, publicly expressed by the law, may be defined as the rational and self-regarding will agents would have if put in an independent and objective state, i.e. the state of nature. The general and the particular will, henceforth considered from an individual point of view, theoretically constitute two alternative choices for an agent. A special focus will then be placed on the function of the law in the process of individual deliberation. By signalling the general will, the law urges individuals to deliberate and to question the autonomy of their preferences. I shall argue that citizenship denotes for Rousseau the tendency of individuals to favour the general will and to master their natural weakness of will. The achievement of citizenship, however, strongly relies upon man's identification with the community, i.e. patriotism, and upon the emotions stirred by the potential death of the body politic.

This paper deals with Rousseau's idea of freedom in terms of rationality and deliberation. It gives support to Berlin's interpretation of the general will as a rational and objective will but dismisses the idea that Rousseau's theory necessarily leads to authoritarianism. The general will, publicly expressed by the law, may be defined as the rational and self-regarding will agents would have if put in an independent and objective state, i.e. the state of nature. The general and the particular will, henceforth considered from an individual point of view, theoretically constitute two alternative choices for an agent. A special focus will then be placed on the function of the law in the process of individual deliberation. By signalling the general will, the law urges individuals to deliberate and to question the autonomy of their preferences. I shall argue that citizenship denotes for Rousseau the tendency of individuals to favour the general will and to master their natural weakness of will. The achievement of citizenship, however, strongly relies upon man's identification with the community, i.e. patriotism, and upon the emotions stirred by the potential death of the body politic.

The freedom concept has been an important one, to daily engagement in activities and everything that becomes so close to people. One of them is computing systems that we use every day and they serve several purposes in moulding human lives. An important aspect of this is behaviour change as many have been successful while others have failed because they are too restrictive for use. However, the presence of freedom does not guarantee the success of many systems. Therefore, this work focuses on how reactance can still be experienced in a persuasive website that ensures freedom and non-forced compliance. Specifically, the work studied anger, compliance and perceived usability of a persuasive website that was developed to provide intervention for users in the area of healthy meal planning through manipulation of freedom levels. Results indicated that participants exposed to high freedom text had lower anger, higher perceived usability and higher compliance than participants exposed to low freedom text and social high freedom message. This led to the conclusion that users' freedom feeling during a persuasive attempt can be boosted with the inclusion of high freedom message design and that the integration of social agents for persuasion enhancement must be done with great care.Keywords: Psychological Reactance, Freedom, Behaviour change, Social Influence, compliance, persuasion, computing devices