The unprecedented size and scope of the American Civil War fundamentally redefined the relationship between state and citizen. Through its conscription laws, the Union government empowered itself to standardize and evaluate the bodies of its citizens; the concurrent General Law pension system extended this standardization into the realm of disability. The government served as both national physician and national accountant, distributing millions of dollars a year to men it deemed unable to earn up to their potential due to wounds and diseases contracted in the Union's defense. Moreover, since so many disabilities were the result of disease - and therefore invisible to the naked eye - the state also asserted its power to certify to the taxpayers that these veterans were indeed among the "deserving poor," not idlers or parasites. This became especially important as pension-related expenses ballooned to the second-largest line item on the budget, and the "veteran vote" became the most important single-issue bloc in American politics. Veterans were themselves voters, however, and could negotiate at least some of the terms of their disability through the political process. This established that disability is discursively constructed - it is a social position, not a permanent physical impairment. Veterans' organizations might sweep socially problematic old soldiers up into Homes, but veterans always retained their influence at the ballot box. Thus, the same political process which enabled the state to seize unprecedented powers of surveillance also kept these new powers at least somewhat in check.

Indonesia’s arduous path to democracy is threatened by several domestic conflicts.<br> Although the civil war in Aceh – a region in the north of Sumatra – has claimed thousands of victims, the incidents have not yet been adequately dealt with – neither in the public domain nor within the scientific community. In May 2003, the Indonesian president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, imposed material law on the Aceh region in order to crack down on the separatist movement Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM). This step does not seem to be in line with serious concepts of democracy and is threatening the consolidation of the transformation process.<br> The author seeks to shed light on the roots of the conflict, the motivation of leading politicians in Jakarta to deploy military means instead of continuing negotiations, and its consequences for the Indonesian process of democratisation.

The Battle of New Hope Church was fought on May 25-26, 1864 as part of the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. This research utilizes historical records along with archaeological fieldwork in order to better understand the battlefield landscape. In particular, I seek to answer whether soldiers behaved in, perceived of, and constructed the battlefield landscape based on a set of cultural norms imposed on them by the strict structure of the military. This research offers insight into the construction of the battlefield landscape at New Hope Church, how it is connected to related battlefield landscapes, and how it has been memorialized as a landscape of conflict.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Supervisor: George B. Forgie. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

This thesis examines how three Lebanese satellite stations and two print journals cover the Syrian civil war. It is useful to analyze Lebanon’s news programming because the relative lack of regulation over its media allows them to take drastically different political stances. Syria and Lebanon’s unique political and cultural connection causes the conflict to permeate both the debates over foreign and domestic policy. My paper is significant because it elucidates the specific ways in which the Syrian crisis divides the already fractured Lebanese populace. My analysis reveals how regional news sources give meaning to the Arab Spring using language drawn from local historical and political experiences. / text

No description available.

This paper engages operationalized discourses from economics and political science on resources and conflict using anthropological theory and ethnographic techniques. Current trends among civil war scholars locate grievances as ubiquitous constructs or rhetorical tools, irrelevant in causal analysis. This de-emphasis generates an unsavory menu of options for governments seeking to eliminate domestic conflict in resource-rich regions rationalizing grievance-generating human rights abuses.In "developing" resource-rich regions the historical trajectory of indigenous populations is placed in conflict with a development agenda that serves state interests. Grievances are central to the conflict over identity within the affected communities in a struggle for national affiliation or disaffiliation. In the absence of a pluralistic political system grievance-motivated political imperatives combine with political isolation to generate political unrest. As grievances are central to understanding cultural change and social unrest, pluralistic institutions and human rights protections have "realpolitikal" value in securing stability in resource-rich regions.

One of the most concerning trends associated with the ongoing problem of civil wars is that conflicts often flare-up a short period after they appeared to have ended. While significant progress has been made in the study of post-civil war peace building and the causes of civil wars, the tendency for civil wars to recur is one factor which has been largely overlooked. This thesis addresses this shortcoming by analysing the causes of recurring civil war using statistical methods. Relevant civil war research was consulted and hypotheses pertaining to the variables which might influence civil war recurrence were formulated. These factors are organised in a contingency framework which suggests that conflict recurrence is dependent on both pre- and post-conflict environments as well as factors associated with how the original conflict was fought. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program/Centre for the Study of Civil War Armed Conflict Dataset was used to produce a dataset of 238 civil wars which were fought between 1946 and 2004. Additional data pertaining to specific hypotheses was collected from a range of other sources. Statistical analysis was conducted to determine the strength and direction of relationships between different variables and civil war recurrence. Several factors were found to have a significant relationship with civil war recurrence: ethnic diversity, conflicts which were fought over territorial issues and conflicts which were not ended by military victory, particularly those which ended as a result of low or no fatalities. These findings are discussed with reference to improving civil war management and policy recommendations are presented.

During the civil war in El Salvador, approximately 38,000 Salvadorans came to Canada, making them the largest group of Latin American migrants to Canada in that era. The arrival of these Salvadoran refugees has received limited academic attention. My thesis examines how Salvadoran refugees to Canada were portrayed in Canadian newspapers. I specifically examine how Salvadorans were written about in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and Montreal’s Gazette; I focus on three eras: 1980 to 1982, 1986 to 1987, and 1991 to 1992. I argue that, throughout these years, Canadian newspapers acted as discursive gatekeepers to the “imagined community” of Canada. Salvadoran refugees moved closer to this community, but were not granted full admittance.

No description available.