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This thesis attempts an evaluation of the concept of African socialism in Ghana under the leadership of Kwame NKrumah. African socialism is defined in various ways by contemporary African thinkers. What they all have in common is the tendency to emphasize the point that African socialism is somehow distinctively African, rooted in African tradition and, therefore, not intrinsically related to Socialism elsewhere. This crude definition could bear further clarification as we examine its implications in economics, politics, and the social structure of Ghana.

The purpose of this study was threefold: to trace the historical development of the problem of national integration in the Sudan; to analyze the role of education in that problem; and to formulate and recommend an appropriate role for education to assume within the context of the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972.This study was based on the following four assumptions:1. The Sudan has both Arab and African cultural characteristics which should be the basis for national integration.2. In the light of the strong sentiment against secessionist movements among African leaders, there appears to be no negotiable alternative to some form of accommodation within the context of one Sudan.3. It is possible for both Northern and Southern Sudanese to coexist with neither losing the greater part of their cultural identity.4. Education can play a major role in the process of national integration.After the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium in the Sudan in 1899, the British recognized the distinctively African character of the Southern Sudanese as opposed to the Arab and Islamic character of the Northerners. The British formulated a policy known as The Southern Policy in 1930. The objective of this policy was the containment of the Arab and Islamic culture in the Southern Sudan. Christian missionaries were allowed to proselytize only in the South and in the non--Arab districts of the North. In 1946, the Southern Policy was abandoned and a new one based on a united Sudan was formulated, but the dual system. of education was maintained. Education in the North was along Arab and Islamic lines whereas the Southern one was along African lines.After the Sudan gained independence in 1956 the new Sudanese government dominated by the Northerners decided to take over all the missionary-owned schools in the South, purportedly in the interest of a uniform national system of education. This quest for a national system became a deliberate attempt to Arabize the South, especially during the six years of military rule by General Abboud (1958--1964). The Southern resistance grew into a guerrilla struggle when the military government adopted repressive measures.The military regime collapsed in 1961, but the subsequent civilian governments could not resolve the North-South conflict. It was not until 1972 that the Addis Ababa Agreement was signed, ending the seventeen year armed conflict. This Agreement granted the three Southern provinces local autonomy within the framework of a united Sudan. It is within this context that the following recommendations for education have been made in this study:1. Both African and Middle Pastern history should receive special emphasis in the general history curriculum for secondary schools.2. National sea-vice and multicultural education should be emphasized in teacher training.3. The hierarchical prefectorial system of student government should be abandoned in favor of a more democratic system.4. Tolerance for diversity of opinion and culture should be emphasized as well as pride in national achievement.The chances for the institutionalization of the Addis Ababa Agreement are as good as those of the permanent constitution in which it has been enshrined. However, there is always the prospect of a hostile coup d'etat which could easily lead to a revival of the old North-South conflict.

The fifth Earl of Carlisle's name appears regularly in works dealing with English political history of the later eighteenth century, but our knowledge of his life and works is nevertheless scanty. Accordingly this thesis seeks to furnish a fairly complete picture of Lord Carlisle, placing special emphasis on his contribution to politics and dealing at some length with his public offices, in particular his position on the Peace Commission which went to America in 1778, his presidency of the Board of Trade from 1779 to 1780, and his viceroyalty of Irelcud from 1780 to 1782. His official life, however, was brief, but contrary to received opinion it will appear in this thesis that for the rest of his life he was by no means politically inactive. Liberating himself to some extent from the influence of more powerful political characters, he deliberately refused office on several occasions and seems to have established himself consciously as a disinterested independent. Such a condition, especially in an aristocratic context, has received little attention from historians, preoccupied with the growth or collapse of party. Aside from politics, some time has also been spent on Carlisle's involvement in local politics and in other traditional practices of the time, and where possible these have been used to illustrate his political attitudes. In particular, for example, there was a direct correlation between his estimation of the value of local political influence and his conception of the structure of politics at Westminster. Finally, it is not claimed in this thesis that Carlisle was an historically influential figure in the official political establishment of his day. Independents do not seek political power. But it is suggested that he was uncommon in his conscious independence, and that he was probably only one of a more numerous body of principled independents than is generally acknowledged.

This thesis examines the administrative history of the middle decade of Edward Ill's reign, between the victories of Crecy and Poitiers, It is often assumed that, after the crisis of 1340-1, the king was only able to maintain domestic peace at the cost of his own power. But the administrative records reveal that this political stability was the result not of a renunciation, but a restoration of royal authority. The king annulled the statute of 1341 limiting his control over appointment of ministers, removed from power the Stratford party which had dominated the government in the 1330's, and gave control of the departments of state to the members of his earlier household administration of 1338-40. These men, enjoying long tenure of office, then put into effect the administrative system planned in the Walton Ordinances of 1338. Bureaucratic reforms in the Chancery, the privy seal, the Exchequer and the household created a more efficient, and therefore more effective administration. These changes were co-ordinated in the king's council, which used its legislative and judicial authority to increase central control. In parliament, the king's ministers were able to direct business, obliging the Commons to grant taxes in return for remarkably few statutory concessions. And the best-enforced legislation of the period was that which accorded with government policy, implemented in the provincial sessions of the King's Bench. The greatest success of the regime however was to transform the financial disasters of the late 1330's into the financial security of the mid 1350's. This was the work of treasurer Edington, the most influential and long-lived of the ministers of this period. The success of the government, however, depended not on one man, but on the co-operation and inter-dependence of the whole administration, united in its common determination to restore the authority of the Crown.

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.

This thesis assesses the contributions of Gaullists to the political practice of Gaullism during the 1960s. Many of those who have written about Gaullism - historians, political scientists, journalists and politicians alike - have tended to focus too narrowly on the personality, beliefs and actions of Charles de Gaulle. Much analysis has been devoted to the General's approach to government, both its substance and its style. However, neglect of the activities of his political associates and supporters has led to an incomplete understanding of the broader political phenomenon that he inspired. This thesis aims to redress this imbalance by highlighting the ways in which individual Gaullists sought to contribute to the policies of successive Gaullist governments during the 1960s and assesses the importance of these contributions in creating an identity for the Gaullist party which, while not always wholly distinct from de Gaulle and though it certainly never developed to the point of outright opposition to him, did lay the foundations for a political movement which could survive the President's eventual departure from office. The research reveals 1960s Gaullism as a much more volatile and heterogeneous phenomenon than has perhaps previously been admitted by some commentators. The thesis considers the political activities of Gaullists at all levels of the movement. First of all, it examines the way in which government was conducted by Gaullist ministers, and argues that their contributions to the identity of the Gaullist movement have been underestimated. In addition, it reveals how there were leading figures within the Gaullist party who attempted to define ways in which Gaullists could contribute to Gaullism in government. Although they never questioned the loyalty of the Gaullist movement to its leader, their awareness of the need for Gaullists to create their own political identity led them to place less emphasis on the importance of the historical figure of de Gaulle to the modern political force which Gaullism would become. The thesis then highlights the neglected fact that Gaullist deputies frequently sought to contribute in their own individual manner to Gaullist government policies in their speeches in the National Assembly. It concludes with an examination of the varied and conflicting comments made on the subject of Gaullism and Gaullist policies by local party members in their local bulletins.

The reign of Basil II (976-1025)is widely accepted as the high point of medieval Byzantium. When the emperor died, imperial frontiers were at their most far-flung since the seventh century. Yet despite the territorial significance of Byzantium in this period, there is no comprehensive modern history of the reign. This thesis develops two important foundation stones for a new narrative history of Basil II: a better understanding of the relevant medieval historiography, and an analysis of the economic and administrative structures which underpinned contemporary political society. The first three chapters analyse the main Greek narrative account of the reign composed by John Skylitzes at the end of the eleventh century. The first chapter is a detailed textual study. The second chapter explores the literary, social and political contexts behind Skylitzes' text. The third chapter compares Skylitzes' coverage of Basil's reign with the rest of the medieval historical record, and identifies a hitherto unacknowledged source in the Greek tradition. Read together, these chapters demonstrate how the demands of history writing in the later eleventh century conditioned Skylitzes' narrative. In order to gain a more contemporary view of the reign, chapters four to six examine the economy and administration of the eastern half of the Byzantine empire during the tenth and eleventh centuries. These chapters argue that from the middle of the tenth century onwards, the administration of the eastern half of the empire was predicated on an imperial desire to exploit increasing regional economic prosperity. However, successive emperors, most notably Basil II himself, recognised the substantial practical constraints on the penetration of imperial authority in the locality. As a result the administration of the Byzantine east was characterised by considerable flexibility, and was able to adapt with surprising ease to local conditions.

This thesis traces the evolution of Arab nationalism in Syria from 1908 to 1920. It attempts to determine when Arab nationalism was accepted as the primary focus of political 1oya1ty by the Syrian Arabs during this period and what reasons prompted the Syrian Arabs to support Arab nationa1ism. It was found that during the years from 1908 to 1918 Arab nationa1sim as a po1itica1 force came into being in Syria and was embraced by a few Syrian Arabs. At this time, however, the majority of Syrian Arabs of all classes rejected Arab nationalism and maintained their po1itica1 allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. In 1918 with the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalism in Syria was accepted by most Syrian Arabs as the only ideological alternative now avai1ab1e by which to maintain and protect their traditional interests and to build a new po1itical community.

This study seeks to assess theories of post-communist political regime diversity. Since 1989 tens of former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe and in the ex-Soviet Union developed into a rainbow of regimes, from stable democracies to stable autocracies. Four major theoretical approaches attempt to explain this diversity by focusing respectively on legacies, institutional choices, political leadership, and external influence. These approaches are tested using a sample of three post-communist countries representing different political trajectories: democracy, authoritarianism, and intermediate regimes. This study finds that none of these approaches comprehensively explains this diversity. "Unpacking" these approaches, however, and combining some elements from each, provides a good starting point for understanding the problem. Designing particular institutions like an electoral system and a strong presidential office may produce democratic or authoritarian trends. Particular legacies such as lack of shared public identity between rulers and the ruled can interfere and, despite institutional preconditions, keep post-communist countries in an intermediate regime position.