O presente estudo investiga a história política de Sobral no período entre 1963-1996. Ao longo dessas décadas, o executivo municipal esteve sob a liderança dos grupos políticos Prado e Barreto que se revezaram na direção do poder local na vigência do Regime Militar no Brasil, sobrevivendo ainda uma década do fim da ditadura. Para alguns analistas, foram três décadas de estagnação econômica e política, mas para outros, foi um período de importantes investimentos infraestruturais, com resultados positivos ainda hoje. O objetivo desta tese é compreender as mudanças e permanências ocorridas na cidade de Sobral ao longo da gestão desses administradores. A investigação está balizada pelo referencial teórico-metodológico da Nova História Política que, embora não tenha a pretensão de afirmar que tudo é político, compreende que o político é o lugar para onde conflui a maioria das atividades humanas. O conceito de cultura política, pensada como conjunto coerente de elementos que permite definir uma forma de identidade do indivíduo que dela se reclama; é aqui o instrumento de análise do objeto proposto. As fontes analisadas foram documentos do Poder Executivo, do Poder Legislativo e do Judiciário, além de periódicos, peça de teatro, fotografias, vídeos, depoimentos, entre muitos outros materiais que permitiram elucidar as questões propostas a esta investigação. / The present study investigates the political history of the period between 1963-1996 Sobral. Throughout these decades, the municipal executive was under the leadership of political groups Prado and Barreto who took turns in the direction of local power in the presence of the military regime in Brazil, even surviving a decade of the end of the dictatorship. For some analysts, it was three decades of economic stagnation and political. For others it was a period of major infrastructure investments with positive results today. The goal is to understand the changes and continuities that occurred in the city of Sobral over the management of these administrators. Research will be buoyed by the theoretical framework of the New Political History, which although not pretend to say that everything is political, the political is understood that the point to where converges most human activities. The concept of political culture, thought of as coherent set of elements that defines a form of identity of the individual who it is claimed, will be the instrument of analysis of the proposed object. The sources were documents of the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, periodicals, plays, photographs, videos, testimonials, and many other materials that help to clarify the issues proposed in this research.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Esta pesquisa organiza reflexÃes sobre os significados que o corpo do presidente Luis InÃcio Lula da Silva deixou expressar na propaganda polÃtica eleitoral de 2006. Para tanto, compreendi a campanha do candidato na televisÃo como sendo um evento cultural e palco de manifestaÃÃes plurais no tocante as significaÃÃes identificadas em suas narrativas, em seu corpo e nas letras de mÃsicas que o acompanharam. Essas anÃlises foram realizadas com bases no que denominei de etnografia da propaganda, isto Ã, uma interpretaÃÃo densa de aspectos culturais e imagÃticos evidenciados nesse campo de anÃlise. / This research organizes reflections on the meanings that the body of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva made ​​express in the 2006 electoral propaganda. For that, I understood the candidate's campaign on television as a cultural event and stage demonstrations plural regarding the meanings identified in their narratives, in your body and in the lyrics that accompanied it. These analyzes were carried out with the bases of ethnography have called propaganda, that is, an interpretation of the cultural and dense imagery evidenced in this field of analysis.

This project develops extant theories of political affect and relational identification and affinity formation by tracing how the visual images of an understudied archive--American superhero comic books--work to build multiple, alternative, fitful, inchoate, and sometimes radically creative spaces for visions of the political to take shape and develop over time. By analyzing and interpreting the generic superhero phenomenon of origin stories in comic books and by mapping the formal and narrative techniques used to construct origin stories, I show how received understandings of power, order, justice, violence, whiteness, masculinity, and heteronormativity often linger outside of language in an analytically untapped relational space between bodies--the space of political affect. Visual images of superheroes thus do more than take up space within political sign-systems; I argue them as material engines of affect, as engines of potential and usefully critical political identities and affinities. Superhero comic books, a cultural form often disregarded as childish or even ideologically dangerous, are thus recovered in this project as theoretically complex, offering speculative feminisms, anti-racism, and queer temporalities that link these popular objects of visual culture to ongoing traditions of utopianism and foundational revisionism within American political culture.

This mixed-method study is focused on the values, beliefs, and attitudes of Jordanian elites towards liberalization, democratization and development. The study aims to describe elites' political culture and centers of influence, as well as Jordan's viability of achieving higher developmental levels. Survey results are presented. The study argues that the Jordanian regime remains congruent with elites' political culture and other patterns of authority within the elite strata. However, until this "cautious liberal" political culture of Jordanian elites changes, a transitional movement cannot arise that would lead Jordan towards greater liberalism, constitutionalism and development. The study concludes with implications for transitional movements in other developing countries, particularly in the Arab region.

This dissertation uses the reading patterns of New York’s earliest elites, including a significant portion of the founding fathers, who checked out books from the New York Society Library (NYSL), to evaluate the shifting meanings of political thought, affiliation, and action in the years between the ratification of the Constitution and the War of 1812. The reading data come from two charging ledgers spanning two periods –1789 to 1792, and 1799 to 1806 – during which a new country was built, relations with foreign nations defined, and contestation over the character of a new democracy was intense. Using novel combinations of text and network analysis, I explore the political nature of reading and the extent to which social, economic, and political positions overlapped with what people read. In the process, I identify the key social and cultural dimensions on which New York, and by extension, American, elite society was politically stratified in its early years.

This dissertation offers a single case in-depth analysis of factors precluding civil society from democratizing African polities. Synthesizing existing literature on Rwanda, I first undertake an historical search to trace the origins and qualities of civil society in the colonial era. This effort shows, however, that the central authority—commencing before the inception of the Republic in 1962—consistently organized civil society to buttress its activities, not to challenge them. Next, using ethnographic research, I challenge conventional economic and institutional accounts of civil society’s role in democratization. I show that institutional change and the economic clout of organized groups are marginal and transient in effect, and hence possess considerable limitations to democratize state and non-state-groups relations. I argue that the Genocide and its historical materials, social and economic precariousness, and neo-patrimonial power configurations have erected a prevailing political culture that still conditions how Rwanda’s state-society relations are imagined, realized, and challenged. Conversely, just as that political culture has lengthened the reach of the state into society, limiting the potential autonomy of civil society, it has also been the basis for rebuilding the society, restoring the state’s authority, and enacting major state-building oriented reforms. Consequently, for CSOs to induce a liberal democratic order in domestic politics, subsequent activism will require long-term strategic and organic investment of actors into the dispersed, parochial strands of democracy first, not into ongoing confrontational, yet fruitless, political warfare that hinders social capital formation and that civil society is not yet equipped to win.

This article deals with the explanation of failed democratisation as caused by political culture. Against the background of the Belarus’ autocracy, the author questions that political culture can be considered a reason for failed democratisation. The Belarus’ paternalistic political culture does not essentially differ from that of successfully democratising neighbouring states. A weak national conscience is the only specific characteristic of the Belarus autocracy, but it lacks a convincing theoretical link with democratisation. Nevertheless, in paternalistic political cultures, successful democratisation seems to need more incentives for people, due to higher adaptation costs.

Academics have been arguing about the political and social changes initiated by communication technologies for more than hundred years. Internet-politics does not have the potential to form a new digital culture of deliberation. The existing background of communication culture is a very important variable which has not been incorporated before. The author suggests five different concepts of politics based on the internet. The model of digital democracy provides a basis for exploring the interconnection between internetbased politics and change in political and communication culture. Digital democracy has the potential to make a difference in public deliberation; however, it needs concerned elites and prudent governance.

Swedish voluntary associations, folkrörelser have been honoredwith a gilt-edged history, a chronicle in need of criticalnuance. Those mass movements which at the time of thebreakthrough of democracy and the welfare society were bearers ofcivic ideals and visions have changed in character and metcompetition from other organizations. Over the years theorganizational sphere as well as its enviroment have evolved intosomething of a completely different nature.The purpose of this study is to reconstruct the communityfunctions of voluntary associations; and to identify theconditions under which voluntary associations are able to promotedifferent political cultures.The analyses prove that voluntary associations in the welfaresociety occupy community functions located between the extremesof a service and a pressure function. Extrapolated to themacro-level they are on the way to a privatist and pluralistsociety, respectively. Few, if any, organizations maintain forcesthat point in the direction of a civil or state society.Organizations push society onto a path leading towards pluralismand individualism, but what does this imply for the developmentof the whole social formation? A variety of forces maycounterbalance the aspirations of voluntary associations. In thewelfare society key emphasis must be placed on what happens whenorganizations meet the challenge imposed by the volumnious growthof the public sector.The capacity of organizations to change the enviroment isdependent on the scale and thoroughness of public intervention:the more extensive government interventionism, the harder it isfor organizations to leave their imprint on the making of apolitical culture. If, however, the integration of the economic,social, and political arenas was to disintegrate or the arenaswere to become softer in their contours, organization potentialswould grow stronger. Voluntary associations are more reactivethan active in political conditions characterized by integratedarenas and government interventionism; reducing publicintervention is a prerequisite for organizations to be able toreshape the political culture. / digitalisering@umu

During the last 50 years, western European societies have been successful in creating economic growth, a functioning democracy and uniting these with social welfare. At the same time, environmental problems have become a major political challenge. Although some measures have been taken to introduce environmental protection, there continue to be serious problems. These can be related to democratic priorities and public information in the sense that they may, amongst other things, be a result of misinformed democratic publics. Jürgen Habermas's work is important for our understanding of how environmental problems can be managed better than today if, contrary to the ecoauthoritarian ideas, we consider that the solution to these problems calls for more democracy and better democratic forms. One can argue that his theory of communicative action makes it difficult to ignore him in debates about today's environmental problems. There are, nevertheless, three difficulties associated with developing a model based on Habermas's theory. Critics argue that, firstly, his theory has theoretical weaknesses; secondly, it is formulated in a way which makes empirical analysis impossible; and, thirdly, it cannot explain the rise of environmental protests and environmental movements, even if Habermas has this ambition. In the thesis, it is considered that environmental problems are political-cultural questions. Accordingly, a political cultural theory is constructed to interprete Habermas's ideas and assess the arguments of his critics. This theory consists of assumptions about notions and types of language-use used in co-ordinating collective action. It is built on the following variables: view of knowledge, view of social values and nature, and view of language-use. It is argued that Habermas's ideas can be defended, if one elaborates a political subculture that is biocentric (nature-centred), as a complement to anthropocentrism (a human-centred view of nature). Thus, his theory of communicative action can be used to develop a cultural model for empirical studies of environmental policy processes. The model consists of three cultural ideal types: anthropocentric material; anthropocentric immaterial; and biocentric immaterial. Obstacles to social learning and public participation, such as forms and styles of reasoning and the exclusion of citizens, are brought into focus. Finally, the model functions as a criticism of a neo-liberal view of environmental problems. Such a view lacks concepts for understanding how individuals consciously can co-ordinate their ideas and individual actions into a collective action. / digitalisering@umu