The change in regional governance in Sweden is regularly understood in terms of a shift from ’government’ to ’governance’, from a redistributive policy to a policy that aims to encourage regional innovation, competitiveness and growth. This shift also includes the adoption of global policy models, such as ’clusters’.  In the literature on the global spread of policies it has been argued that a market for global policies has developed. This is not least evident through the expansion of global consultancy firms, international policy organisations as well as a cosmopolitan elite of travelling policy technocrats. Theoretically and methodologically this study contributes to scholarly discussions of how new forms of governance can be analysed, and especially how governmentality studies can be utilised and combined with analyses of the messy political practices of specific policies and programs. The study analyses the discursive shift in regional policy in Sweden: contested elements erased, conflicts concealed and the political order produced. By empirically departing from a ’cluster policy network’ lodged within a Swedish region, cluster policy is analysed as an assemblage of global circuits of knowledge, expertise and local relations of power. A broad range of materials for analysis have been generated through interviews, participant observations and documents. The production of policy knowledge is an overarching political rationality of contemporary forms of regional governance, translated into technologies such as benchmarking, regional comparisons, competitions, evaluations and best-practice. Based on the empirical analyses it is argued that the lack of power critique and a hyper-rational representation of knowledge produce an international market for legitimacy. It is further argued that five characteristics of the policy regime (’the regional cluster orchestra’) contributes to the reproduction of the policy regime, and relations of domination. / Baksidestext Avhandlingen tar sin utgångspunkt i vad som har beskrivits som en marknad för globala policymodeller. I Sverige har klusterbegreppet, med ursprung i ekonomisk och geografisk teoribildning, fått stort genomslag i regionalpolitiken. I den samtida regionalpolitiken har också produktionen av olika former av policykunskap utvecklats till centrala styrningsteknologier: benchmarking, best practice, utvärderingar, uppföljningar, mätningar och konkurrensutsatta tävlingar om regionala utvecklingsmedel. Genom kunskap och ständigt lärande ska Sveriges regioner frälsas. I avhandlingen studeras den scen där ett regionalt förankrat policynätverk agerar och den kunskap som produceras. Regionalpolitikens rationalitet innebär att det blir centralt för regionerna att agera som enhetliga aktörer och visa upp en lyckad och framgångsrik fasad. Det argumenteras för att bristen på maktanalys, och en hyperrationell syn på kunskap i regionalpolitiken innebär att regionalpolitikens styrningsteknologier producerar en internationell marknad för legitimitet som i sin tur reproducerar ordningen och döljer dominansrelationer.

I set out to learn something basic about architecture, something foundational on which to situate the conceptual and rhetorical exercises played within the studio. In settings both academic and professional I had been encouraged to reduce my study of architecture to a cerebral and retinal game of sorts played out via ever-increasingly seductive imagery. It seemed apparent that in order to think about architecture I should have been involved in an act of architecture. My intentions, albeit naïve, were to engage architecture on its own terms, through its own medium, to return to first principles, if there ever were any, and to acquire a form of embodied architectural knowledge inseparable from its material becoming. There was no amount of hypothesizing, theorizing, no amount of digital sophistication that could supplant the basic educational experience gained from involving myself with real materials, in a real place, with a fully engaged being. With this in mind I journeyed into Ontario’s North, with little more than a hammer and saw and a desire for experience, that most brutal of teachers. I would engage in a basic act of building as a method of acquiring a deeper understanding of the subject I had been studying for several years yet whose essence I felt I knew very little about. The resultant document, informed by traditions of the primitive hut, records a journey towards architectural embodiment; it resides as an argument for the reintroduction of embodied forms of learning into the education of the architect.

Quebec knew a long tradition of regionalistic literature since the novel of the soil, tradition with which the writers of Quebec broke for a long time. However, certain writers still practice a regionalistic form of literature, which does not have anything to see with the novel of the soil. Within the literary institution, the regionalistic writers of today seem to belong to a sphere of distinct production. In order to delimit the space occupied by the contemporary regionalistic writers, we based ourselves on the theory of the literary field of Pierre Bourdieu and the theory of the institution of the literature of Jacques Dubois. So as to apply the model of Bourdieu and Dubois to a typical example of contemporary regionalistic writer, we chose to concentrate us on the career of Sylvain Riviere, Gaspesian writer born in 1955. Sylvain Riviere seems to be the regionalistic writer par excellence, who devoted the most part of his work to his region, Gaspesia and the Magdalen Islands. The example of Sylvain Riviere shows us that in spite of his marginality, the regionalistic writer is able to find his place inside the contemporary literary field.

In recent years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become the main driving force of the economic dynamism of Southeast Asia. Japan, being the economic leader of the Southeast Asian countries during the 1980s and the early 1990s, is in a declining position in terms of leadership. Japan has also been experiencing economic recession since the mid-1990s and displaying only subtle signs of recovery recently. China, however, has taken the advantage of being the most demanding market of the region and already established the functional mechanisms of economic integration with ASEAN. This economic configuration of the region is the main inquiry of this study. Although the growing economic integration of China with ASEAN is fairly recent, it is generally discussed in the academic circles, that China has been taking the lead as an economic player in Southeast Asia. However, it is argued in this study that China is not yet ready to replace Japan as an economic leader of Southeast Asian in the long-term. Given the recent economic interaction between ASEAN and China, it is early to predict that China would replace Japan&#039 / s leading economic position. In addition to that, China&#039 / s blooming economy with its domestic crisis potential and China&#039 / s long-erm geo-strategic interests in the South China Sea should also be taken into account while analysing economic potentials of Japan and China in the ASEAN market. The study examines the related literature with a comparative methodology including the analysis of the recent statistical data and survey of the news.

This study aims to analyzing the role of Islam, regionalism, and external factors (the involvement of the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iran) in the Tajik Civil War (1992-97). It analyzes all these three factors one by one. In the thesis, it is argued that all of the three factors played an active and equal role in the emergence of the war and that in the case of the absence of any of these factors, the Tajik Civil War would not erupt. As such, none of the factors is considered to be the only player on its own and none of the factors is considered to be the basic result of other two factors.

The aim of this study is to examine the formation and consolidation of the Pamiri people in Tajikistan. The research focuses on two topics. The first is to compare the primordialist and constructionist schools over the question of the features individuating ethnic groups. The formation of Pamiri ethnic identity during the Soviet rule was selected as a case study of this thesis. The second topic of this study is to examine the formation of Pamiri ethnic identity and the factors that contributed for its consolidation during the Soviet period. While the first topic is gathered around contemporary issues about ethnicity, the second one is based on the Soviet period with a focus on the policies about the nationality question.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-213). / Microfiche. / vii, 213 leaves, bound 29 cm

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis deals with the theoretical and methodological development of the study of Regionalism in International Relations. It rests on the assumption of a dichotomy in Regionalism studies between Rationalist and Ideational approaches, hampering the understanding of the motives for and nature of Regionalism. The “Rationalist” approach focuses on material interdependency as the main driving force behind integration. Thus, Regionalism is seen as a consequence of rational calculations and bargains by rational agents. In contrast, the “Ideational”, or Social Constructivist approach, emphasizes shared regional identity and culture as driving forces that produce levels of “cognitive interdependence”. As will be demonstrated, however, neither approach alone provides a satisfactory explanation to the motives for and nature of Regionalism, including the process of enlargement. This thesis thus, aims to test, challenge and further develop explanatory models in the theory of Regionalism.In particular the thesis aims to add to the understanding of the process of enlargement, as well as its motives, through deploying those models to the problem of the ‘borderline states’. The problem of the ”borderline states” is demonstrated by the means of two case studies: Australia and Turkey in the context of their relationship with their respective regions - European Union and emerging Regionalism in East Asia, and in particular their position in European and East Asian Regionalism. They are labelled ‘borderline states’ not for their geographical properties, but for the permanent partiality of their inclusion within their regions. Such states are in constant flux, varying their degree of belonging depending on the criteria of enclosure. As this thesis demonstrates, Rationalist approach has a particular strength in analysing the process of enlargement, whilst Ideational approach is required for analysing the motives of enlargement. Moreover, it argues that a potential point of converge between the two approaches is analysing the stability of enlargement. It then further argues that analytical eclecticism can be useful in terms of identifying and framing problems that are significant, but for ontological and epistemological reasons have a tendency to be ignored by the paradigmatic approaches. Finally, the thesis proposes new definitions of region and Regionalism to accommodate a more eclectic understanding of what constitutes a region, what drives Regionalism and in particular how a region’s membership is determined.

ASEAN has been carrying out art activities since its formation in 1967. Some of the artists from the region have initiated discussions about their traditional cultures and aesthetic discourses in recent years. One of the main issues during the 93 Symposium at Manilla was to call for an Asean aesthetic identity. It was due to the increasing awareness of the growing consciousness of culture and identity in the region. This paper begins with the history of the Nanyang Style which was established by a group of immigrant artists from China during the 30s and 40s. The Nanyang Style of art was an integration of traditional Chinese ink and wash painting, and was influenced by the School of Paris and local subject matter. By synthesising these three elements, the Nanyang artists were able to imbue a sense of local consciousness within their works. During the 1950s the Nanyang artists had extended their aesthetic explorations to Bali and since then Balinese indigenous art has become a major influence on the Nanyang Style. This was seen as an issue of regionalism in the early art history of Singapore. Nanyang Style became the mainstream in visual arts practice in Singapore until it was replaced by Abstract Expressionism and Pop art in the 1970s. Attempted in this paper however, is a re-examination of the Nanyang Style in order to demonstrate its significant contribution to the art world of Singapore. This paper also suggets that Nanyang Style might be reassessed as a metaphor for Singaporean cultural identity given its synthesised characteristics. This reassessment will further contribute to the broader debate concerning the shaping of an ASEAN aesthetic in the region / Master of Arts (Hons)

In the last twenty years, regional trade agreements have proliferated. These have usually taken the form of customs unions (CUs) or free trade areas (FTAs). This thesis concentrates mostly on the formation and behaviour of CUs. Union members levy a common external tariff (CET) on non-members. Existing theoretical models, however, do not agree on how the CET rate is chosen. Every model imposes a different choice rule exogenously. In this thesis, for the first time, plausible choice rules, based on the CU's social welfare function, are derived endogenously. The strategic behaviour of members and non-members, reveals that responsibility for CET choice tends to be assumed by the member that can induce the rest of the world to levy those tariffs members prefer to face. Relatively few general results exist describing the relationship between country characteristics and trade bloc formation. Here, new light is shed on this issue, by systematically analysing bloc formation in an asymmetric world, and investigating the role of preferences in coalition formation. It is found that global free trade is most likely to arise when all countries are similar. Customs unions tend to form between relatively well-endowed countries or those with similar preferences. It is also demonstrated that CUs will usually Pareto dominate FTAs, except where preferences differ significantly. The role of transfers in CU formation has received relatively little attention in the regionalism literature. In this thesis, optimal intra-union transfers are introduced and their impact on CET choice is investigated. The impact of transfers on CU behaviour depends on the direction of the transfer. When the relatively inelastic member is the recipient, the CU responds less aggressively to non-member tariff choices than it does when transfers are not permitted. However, if the relatively elastic member is the transfer recipient, the union's aggression increases. Moreover, when one union member exercises a similar degree of control over both CET and transfer choice, then the equilibrium CET tends to be lower than in the corresponding no-transfers situation.