Contemporary global governance has become reliant on the expert knowledge of professional actors. Yet governance systems based on technical forms of private authority have proven highly unstable and vulnerable to crisis. How is private authority re-configured following challenges and pressures for change in times of crisis? This dissertation explores the agency exercised by a range of professional actors seeking to legitimately reassert power during periods in which their expert knowledge has become unsettled. A two-prong thesis is advanced. First, in drawing on explicitly normative discourses professional actors seek to reassert moral authority, rather than addressing flaws in their expert knowledge and emphasising their technical authority. Professional actors express attention to and involvement with a wider array of overtly ethical issues that had previously been abstracted away. Second, reassertions of authority may depend not merely on more explicit positioning within normative debates but upon the underlying ideas and values prioritised. The authority of professional actors remains precarious when value sets linked to crisis are continuously emphasised. A genealogical analysis of professional actors in Anglo-American finance since the outbreak of the most recent financial crisis in 2007 is undertaken through a revised variant of the discursive institutionalist framework. Informed by primary documents from professional actors and their associations along with original interviews and secondary media documents, the changing underpinnings of the authority of financial services providers, economists, and advisories based in the United States and United Kingdom are examined. The study contributes to a wider emphasis on the changing authority of a range of private actors as well as to an enhaced stress on both discourse and ethics in International Relations, Global/International Political Economy, and Global Governance scholarship. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation explores the persistent prominence of professional actors in Anglo-American finance since 2007. Though their legitimacy has become widely challenged with the outbreak of the most severe period of instability since the Great Depression, the power of these private actors has not entirely been dislodged. Professional actors have sought to legitimise such continued power in financial governance in novel manners since 2007. This study critically assesses attempts by professional actors to reconfigure their authority in the recent period of volatility. In interpreting how professional actors have sought to reconfigure authority, rather than explaining the ultimate success of their attempts to do so, efforts by professional actors to legitimise their power are scrutinised. Uncovering the precariousness of such attempts, this study casts further doubt on the legitimacy of both professionals as well as on-going efforts to reform financial governance that persistently rely on the authority of private actors.

Grafiska och musikaliska teorier kring godhet och ondska har tolkats och översatts till teorier lämpade för ljuddesign. Detta för att undersöka om en karaktärs godhet och ondska kan uttryckas endast med hjälp av ljuddesign som berättarverktyg. Genom tidigare forskning samt intervjuer som hölls med professionella ljuddesigners skapades en ljudande gestaltning som satte dessa nya teorier på prov i praktiken. Artikeln finner att dessa teorier går att översätta till ljuddesign, men att ljuddesign som berättarverktyg inte är det mest effektiva att förmedla karaktärens godhet eller ondska. Att förmedla godhet och ondska görs enligt artikeln fortfarande mest effektfullt genom musik och grafik. Eftersom godhet och ondska inom ljuddesign är ett relativt outforskat område har denna artikel börjat etablera de första stegen genom att undersöka de extrema ändarna av egenskaperna godhet och ondska. / Graphic and musical theories regarding good and evil have been interpreted and translated to theories suited for sound design. This was done in order to examine if a character's good and evil traits can be expressed solely through sound design as its only narrative device. Through research and interviews held with professional sound designers, an audio-visual prototype was created to test these theories in practice. This article finds that, while these theories can be translated to sound design, this narrative tool is not the most effective in conveying good and evil, and it is still more effectful to convey this through graphic and musical theories. This is a relatively unexplored area of sound design and this article serves to establish some of the first steps by exploring the two extremes of good and evil traits.

The aim of this paper is to study the morality of two opposing political parties’ perspective on culture. The political parties chosen for this paper are the Green party and the Sweden democrats. These political parties were chosen because of their stated opposition against each other as well as their categorization in political attitude test like the GAL-TAN scale. The paper uses Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundation theory as a basis to examine the morality of the two political parties. Moral Foundation theory is a theory of moral psychology that uses evolutionary principles to describe how morality evolved in humans and what the foundations of morality are. These moral foundations are according to Haidt: Care, Fairness, Authority, Loyalty, Sanctity and Freedom. The material used for this paper are election manifestos and other policy programmes of both political parties. The method used is discourse analysis. The analysis of the material shows that both parties put forth similar political propositions in regard to culture. The main difference between both political parties is on which moral foundation the political proposition was put forth. This was most evident in cases where the political proposition was effectively the same, but the moral motivation behind the proposition was based on different moral foundations.

Even if they do not realize it, readers are perpetually in a condition that is strikingly similar to that of the Good Samaritan. Right now they have access to a vast network of communication that both enhances their senses and increases their sphere of influence. They can, for example, sit down at a computer and click on a certain combination of "sites" and the result will be that, in two weeks (or sooner), a DVD will arrive on their doorstep. Or, they can choose another combination, and the result will be that, in about two weeks (or less), a child will be saved from starvation and dehydration in some distant and destitute nation. Like the Good Samaritan, a reader of this thesis can see the desperate need of others and they have the ability to affect their condition. This perpetual Good Samaritan condition is directly a result of the recent changes the world has undergone as a result of technological advancement. This thesis is an exploration of the ethical implications of the potential perpetual good Samaritan. I will argue that (1) affluent individuals are able to affect positively the global poor and that they have a moral obligation to do so, (2) that this moral obligation is limited insofar as fulfilling the obligation requires a moral agent to sacrifice something of substantial significance (i.e., something that would cause a long term decrease in happiness), and (3) fulfilling this obligation requires specific actions on political, social, and individual levels.

Art can be an elusive concept. Neither an outsider nor a professional artist is immune to abstractions in the attempt to describe it. Every individual must necessarily come from their own, unique perspective. The obstacles that we experience in defining the essence of art can be better understood if we see them as a gauge for our historical period. Given the limits of our contemporary conditions, it seems impossible that we may ever overcome the vast chasms that imprison us. We are discouraged to build bridges, at almost every turn, by the suggestive hopelessness of the abysmal distances between us. The series of work that I have developed for this thesis is a reflection on limitations. Whether we find them in the creative process or within the simple contemplations of our life experiences, thinking on our limits can lead us to a heightened cognition where we may find a lofty expression of human freedom. If art is to have a proper role in human culture, human individuals must begin to solve the problems of our limitations through the freedom that cognition affords us. We can begin by thinking imaginatively. Although difficult, it is quite possible to imagine reality. Beyond the mere production of beautiful objects, art is the very current that warms human beings to the reality that surrounds us. Artists can become involved by attempting to immerse their life in a new light of knowledge. With this sentiment, inspiration can begin offering us flight towards unreachable heights. The path that leads us, then, to an authentic concept of art will also take us into the world of another just as elusive: spirit.

Human Trafficking involves the various forms of coercion and force against millions of individuals all over the world into situations of unpaid labor, sexual exploitation, and organ sales. Attention to the phenomenon is relatively new and there is complexity both in how to address it and study it. When looking at human trafficking, issues of development, poverty, immigration, gender, international cooperation, social stigma, among others, are considered. The purpose of this research paper is to compare and analyze local law interpretations of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, or just "the Palermo Protocol", in a sample of countries who have ratified the international agreement. The countries selected for analysis vary from each other in how they stand as dominant "origins" or "destinations" of human trafficking and how well they do in eradicating the problem as categorized by the United States Trafficking in Persons Report (US TIP Reports) "Tier" statuses. Through asking a set of questions of each law, trends are revealed. The study found that local law documents used many elements from the Palermo Protocol to frame their documents; there were fewer differences than expected. The major differences were in how laws were integrated into the existing legal framework or if a comprehensive separate act was defined. Implications and the role of morality politics and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are theorized. Many studies in this field are laden with ever changing statistics, very specific case studies, or material that speaks to how the situation is stigmatized. All contribute to deeper understanding, but by objectively looking at how the major international mechanism works at a local level we may inch towards learning more about how the issue continues to pervade globally.

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