This thesis aims to study Russian foreign policy towards Kosovo during the period between 1998 and 2008 in light of the school of thought that claims that Russia&#039 / s foreign policy toward Kosovo resembles the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. This thesis argues that Russia&rsquo / s role in the Kosovo war and its aftermath is motivated by Russia&rsquo / s interest in being seen as a great power in international system rather than using Kosovo in order to confront the United States. Besides an introduction and conclusion, the thesis consists of four main chapters. The second chapter presents historical background and discusses Russian foreign policy during the wars of secession in Yugoslavia. The third chapter focuses on Russian foreign policy and the 1998 &ndash / 1999 war in Kosovo, while the fourth chapter covers the Russian role in the post-conflict settlement in Kosovo. Finally, the fifth chapter deals with Russian foreign policy as it relates to the resolved Kosovo situation.

Taiwan's complex informal diplomatic practices and the forces behind them have brought both successes and failures in Taiwan's relations with former Yugoslavia and its successor states. In order to better comprehend and adequately explain the foreign policy outputs, the study has systematically examined external and internal influences that have shaped Taipei's foreign policy by employing four basic levels of analysis ¡V the system, the state, the societal and the individual level. The study has argued that while both, internal and external factors have shaped Taiwan's relations, the China factor in particular has posed the major source of external systemic influence that has affected Taiwan's diplomatic endeavors in the post-Yugoslav region. To circumvent the China-imposed international isolation and the system that refuses to recognize its legitimacy, Taiwan has utilized informal diplomacy to advance its national interests. Although systemic level may best explain Taiwan's diplomatic behavior, governmental, societal and individual levels also present relevant dimensions of explanation. Taiwan's diplomatic offensive and the pattern of its approaches towards the former Yugoslav region in general, have caught public attention upon Taiwan's diplomatic breakthrough with Macedonia in January 1999. The study has revealed that among the multi-track diplomatic strategies it employed in its foreign policy, Taipei mainly resorted to economic diplomacy, primarily in the form of trade as well as in the form of economic aid in order to establish closer ¡V preferably diplomatic or, at least, semi-official ¡¥substantive¡¦ ¡V relations with the post-Yugoslav nations. Despite its short triumph with Macedonia, Taiwanese diplomacy failed to accomplish its objectives in post-Yugoslav states. Nevertheless, saying that does not imply that it has been unsuccessful.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Civil Military Relations))--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Donald Abenheim. Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-67). Also available online.

This thesis considers Seven Easy Pieces, Marina Abramović’s 2005 cycle of re-performances at the Guggenheim Museum, as part of a broader effort to recuperate the art of the 1960s and 1970s. In re-creating canonical pieces known to her solely through fragmentary documentation, Abramović helped to bring into focus how performances by Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Gina Pane, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, and herself were being re-coded by the mediating institutions. Stressing the production of difference, my analysis revolves around two of the pieces in detail. First, the Deleuzian insight that repetition produces difference sheds light on the artist’s embellishment of her own Lips of Thomas (1975) with a series of Yugoslav partisan symbols. What follows is an examination of the enduring role of this iconography, exploring the 1970s Yugoslav context as well as the more recent phenomenon of “Balkan Art,” an exhibition trend drawing upon orientalizing discourse. While the very presence of these works in Tito’s Yugoslavia complicates the situation, I show how the transplanted vocabulary of body art may be read against the complex interweaving of official rhetoric and dissident activity. I focus on two distinct interpretations of Marxism: first, the official emphasis on discipline and the body as material producer, and second, the critique of the cult of personality as well as dissident notions about the role of practice in social transformation. It is in this sense that a distinctly spiritualist vocabulary also acquires a political dimension in drawing upon movements such as Fluxus and Neo-Dada, and underscoring the value of the immaterial and the non-productive. Finally, I explain how a reversal of Slavoj Žižek’s tripartite structure of ideology can help to articulate how a repetition of Beuys’s actions in this context actually displaces their cosmological aspect by virtue of the re-enactment setting alone.

The objective of this thesis is to identify alternative building systems for low rise housing, that can be applied to the market of countries of the former Yugoslavia. Six building systems, developed and produced in Canada, have been selected for this purpose. In order to compare them to existing system, the set of criteria for evaluation is developed, based on three major aspects: the technical aspect deals with codes and regulations, implementation, durability and other physical characteristics of building systems; the economic aspect compares costs; and the psychological aspect investigates the level of acceptance from both the builders' and homeowners' point of view. / The results of this research prove the complexity of the issue of technology transfer. Even though all evaluated building systems showed technical and, particularly economical improvements over the existing masonry, it is the issue of cultural acceptance that is the determining factor in the success of a new product. That is the main reason why building systems based on concrete would more likely be accepted over "light" frame systems. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

In this project, contemporary theater and performance art is examined in four cities in ex-Yugoslavia. War has pervaded all of the sites in some way, interrupting a sense of normalcy, altering the city physically as well as ideologically. For that reason, interaction with urban space becomes a central element in performances—whether it serves to preserve the city’s identity amidst destruction, to cleanse the city from the shame of official exploits, to break from the insular legacy of nationalism that flooded the streets, or to gather the city together in a process of collective healing.

This thesis examines the development of the Yugoslav Communists' approach towards the Catholic Church during the period of their takeover and consolidation of power from the outbreak of war in April 1941 until late 1946. In recent years, a comprehensive reappraisal of the Communist takeover has been going on in the countries of former Yugoslavia, and this work draws on this new scholarship, as well as on hitherto unused archival material. It examines the development of the Communists' popular front line during the war, according to which the Communist-dominated Partisan movement sought to appeal to non-communists, including Catholics, to join them in ousting the occupier. As such, this policy meant downplaying the Communists' revolutionary programme, which they never actually gave up. The thesis examines in detail the application of the popular front policy among the Catholic Croats of Croatia and Bosnia, and among the Slovenes. It describes how the Communists avoided actions or pronouncements that would have offended the Church, attempted to have cordial relations with the Church hierarchy and encouraged the active participation of Catholic clergy and prominent lay people in the movement. The prime purpose of this was to reassure the Catholic population that they had nothing to fear from a Communist takeover. However, the hostility between the two sides was not overcome, as revealed in the violence of the Communists towards many of the clergy during the period immediately before and after their takeover. Following this, the Communists' implementation of their revolutionary programme brought them into direct conflict with the interests of the Church, especially in their curtailing of the role of the Church in education and in their confiscation of Church property. Relations quickly degenerated into open confrontation, as the Church could not accept the limited role in society which the Communists were prepared to grant it.

In this thesis, the systematic usage of sexual violence towards women as a weapon during the Yugoslavian Civil War is analyzed. The study attempts to underline the role of gender identities of women during the Civil War as a means for the victimization of women through sexual violence, especially mass rapes. It is argued that with the disintegration of Yugoslavia, as men clashed for power, the portrayal of women as mothers and carriers of the nation under the nationalistic discourse caused these women to become the primary targets of the war. It is also argued that the primary aim of rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing during the war was to destroy the harmony and unity of the enemy by dishonoring and violating their women.

This thesis considers Seven Easy Pieces, Marina Abramović’s 2005 cycle of re-performances at the Guggenheim Museum, as part of a broader effort to recuperate the art of the 1960s and 1970s. In re-creating canonical pieces known to her solely through fragmentary documentation, Abramović helped to bring into focus how performances by Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Gina Pane, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, and herself were being re-coded by the mediating institutions. Stressing the production of difference, my analysis revolves around two of the pieces in detail. First, the Deleuzian insight that repetition produces difference sheds light on the artist’s embellishment of her own Lips of Thomas (1975) with a series of Yugoslav partisan symbols. What follows is an examination of the enduring role of this iconography, exploring the 1970s Yugoslav context as well as the more recent phenomenon of “Balkan Art,” an exhibition trend drawing upon orientalizing discourse. While the very presence of these works in Tito’s Yugoslavia complicates the situation, I show how the transplanted vocabulary of body art may be read against the complex interweaving of official rhetoric and dissident activity. I focus on two distinct interpretations of Marxism: first, the official emphasis on discipline and the body as material producer, and second, the critique of the cult of personality as well as dissident notions about the role of practice in social transformation. It is in this sense that a distinctly spiritualist vocabulary also acquires a political dimension in drawing upon movements such as Fluxus and Neo-Dada, and underscoring the value of the immaterial and the non-productive. Finally, I explain how a reversal of Slavoj Žižek’s tripartite structure of ideology can help to articulate how a repetition of Beuys’s actions in this context actually displaces their cosmological aspect by virtue of the re-enactment setting alone.

This exegesis examines how a writer can effectively negotiate the relationship between author, character, fact and truth, in a work of Creative Nonfiction. It was found that individual truths, in a work of Creative Nonfiction, are not necessarily universal truths due to individual, cultural, historical and religious circumstances. What was also identified, through the examination of published Creative Nonfiction, is a necessity to ensure there are clear demarcation lines between authorial truth and fiction. The Creative Nonfiction works examined, which established this framework for the reader, ensured an ethical relationship between author and audience. These strategies and frameworks were then applied to my own Creative Nonfiction.