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This dissertation argues that Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls can be seen as seminal contributors to two quite distinct revivals of political theory in the latter half of the twentieth century. It suggests that coming to grips with the different underlying character of these revivals and writers is important to understanding political theory and liberalism today. However, while the importance Berlin's of Berlin's work is increasingly recognized, there remain puzzling controversies concerning its overall character and import and in particular concerning its relationship to the dominant forms of American political thought, and Rawls' work in particular. This dissertation offers a novel interpretation of Berlin's political thought and liberalism, and a preliminary exploration of its relationship with Rawls' political thought. / The reading of Berlin develops the following principal themes: (1) Berlin was a moderate but consistent historicist primarily concerned with the interpretive self-understanding of his own form of life; (2) Berlin was a strong but distinctive pluralist who argued for a limited but open-ended range of recognizable and rivalrous ultimate values and for an agitated equilibrium of these values in public life; (3) Berlin focused the bulk of his critical energy on defending an internally pluralistic range of traditionally liberal values within this agitated equilibrium, with an emphasis on liberty and pluralism. He nonetheless recognized that there were other equally ultimate values, not distinctively liberal, which were legitimate and deserving of consideration and even defense. Berlin's essential insight is into the contemporary rivalry of equally ultimate values revealed by the historicist exercise of the sympathetic imagination. / This interpretation of Berlin's thought suggests some deep points of dispute with Rawls' Political Liberalism, in particular over the regulative role of Rawls' political conception of justice in public reason. This dissertation argues that, when explored, these points of disagreement reveal two very different approaches to contemporary political thought, Berlin's grounded in an embrace of strong moral and political pluralism as the basis of political theory, and Rawls' grounded in an effort to tame such "simple" pluralism through the elaboration of a consensual normative framework of public life.

Science in the 1970s and 1980s has come to be linked closely to the unsettling matter of human rights and international accountability. Andrei Sakharov contributed to this development by relying very substantially on his colleagues in North America and Western Europe in his battles to free Soviet society. He understood---as they themselves sometimes did not---to what degree the prestige of the Soviet Union's own military-industrial complex depended not only on the West's concrete achievements in science and technology, but on the political positions its scientists adopted in the Cold War. Hence this particular study, the purpose of which is to determine the historical significance of Sakharov's drive against the Soviet regime in the light of the reaction of his scientific colleagues in the West. / Before 1968, Sakharov was known to a handful of Western scientists as the father of the Soviet H-Bomb, which partly accounts for the fact that many had doubts not only on the genuine nature of his reflections, issued that year, but on Sakharov's very existence. His deportation to Gorky in January 1980 undermined the hawks and sceptics in the West, and turned him into a global figure, characterized by original thinking, self-denial, legitimacy of purpose and undisputed moral authority. It did so on the basis of liberal philosophical principles with which most Western scientists found themselves in accord. Having reached an unprecedented level, their protests would play a crucial role in Sakharov's release by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986. / This, however, came at a price---the boycott of scientific exchanges with the Soviet Union which was the ultimate gesture of solidarity with the cause Sakharov represented. For many scientists this was a soul-wrenching choice, made in the face of persuasive arguments for maintaining open relations with the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Nevertheless, due to its exceptional symbolism, Sakharov's exile even legitimized the concept of boycott for the more important national scientific societies in the West---which only shortly prior to 1980 were still reluctant to condone any sign even of public protest. / This study makes use of previously unexplored material such as that of the Committee of Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov, and Shcharansky at the University of California in Berkeley. It also relies heavily on accounts by the latter and other scientists in the United States, France and Great Britain who took part in some of the events described, among them legendary figures such as Edward Teller and Henri Cartan. In reminding us of the ordeal once Buffered by Galileo and J. R. Oppenheimer, this dissertation concludes with the untimely death of Sakharov, which defined the future course of perestroika and dealt a blow to the cause of human rights.

This thesis proposes to deal with the Iraqi Nationalist movement from its emergence after the First World War to the establishment of an independent Iraq in 1932. During these years the British controlled Iraq under a mandate granted by the League of Nations. This, in spite of the simultaneous creation of an Iraqi monarchy. Neither the new monarch nor the people were content with the political arrangement, based as it was on foreign control, but the drive for independence emanated from a small group of political activists. Both major religious sects of Islam, Sunni and Shi'a, played a leading role in the nationalist movement; in fact, the movement cannot be understood without an appreciation of Islam, and its major variations, in Iraqi life. / A historical background highlights the conditions which allowed Iraqism to take precedent over Arabism after the war and examines the reactions of Iraqis to the invasion by modern conquerors and their later occupation. Additionally, it provides a chronological account of the important events during the mandate period and the buildup of Iraqi resentment of foreign control which precipitated their demand for self-government. / This thesis is a broad study of the nascent nationalist movement in postwar Iraq which engaged in a desperate battle to transform a mandated territory into a sovereign state. Focus is on the role religion played in its beginnings and on the contribution of both Shi'is and Sunnis whose combined and independent efforts led to the formation of modern Iraq.

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The centre of this dissertation is an attempt to define and assess the dramatic works of Canadian playwright Patricia Joudry. This compilation of the author's prodigious output between 1940 and 1981 will make all the dramas for radio, television, and the stage accessible to the public for the first time. The study discusses the author's approach to writing, her thematic and philosophical preoccupations, and investigates the influence of her personal life on her dramas. A detailed biographical study, based on an examination of Joudry's published and unpublished works, private papers, letters, and interviews is included. The dramas are presented chronologically, thematically, and according to the medium for which they were written. One chapter examines the author's absorption with occultist lore, and deals with the plays produced during a two-year period of "religious delusion." The bibliography contains critical reviews and production notes, and comprehensive lists of all of Joudry's produced and unproduced dramas, published and unpublished essays, novels, and autobiographies.

In this study I investigate the influence and reception of Paulo Freire in Indonesia with a specific question in mind: To what extent has Freire influenced educational thought and practice in the country? This study shows that Paulo Freire has been known in Indonesia since the early 1970s, although he was at first familiar only to certain groups. In the 1980s, the discourse and practice of Freirean education was more extensive than in the 1970s, with both domains (discourse and practice) equally balanced. The trend in the 1990s up to 2005 shifted: there was a more extensive discussion of Freire than implementation of his theory and methodology in practice. / This study shows that Paulo Freire has left a considerable intellectual legacy to Indonesian educational scholars and practitioners. In fact, his cultural and educational philosophies have become subjects of discussion amongst social activists, educational practitioners and scholars concerned with educational issues. It is no wonder that many articles, books and theses by and on Freire are available in the Indonesian. I would venture to say that no other foreign educational thinker has gained such acceptance in Indonesia. / The study explores as well the attempts to connect Freire to Islam---the faith of a majority of Indonesian---demonstrated by the publication of many articles and theses that tried to compare and connect the two. This is, to the best of my knowledge, a new feature in Freirean scholarship. My contention is, however, that any attempt to compare Islam and Freire is likely to fall into apologetic, in the sense that this would only confirm that Islam also insists on the idea of liberation, as Freire did, without trying to analyze why such an idea has never developed in Islamic education. The fact that Islam, since its appearance, has concerned itself with liberation and taking the side of the poor cannot be denied. However, using this fact to legitimate Freire's educational philosophy and practice is less productive, because it does not make a substantive contribution to re-developing and re-structuring Islamic education, which is essentially conservative. / Freire in Indonesia is not only influential in the realm of discourse, but in that of practice as well. In this study I investigate the experiences of Indonesian educational practitioners in applying Freire's educational philosophy and methodology to certain discrete groups within the society, namely, villagers in Papua, the rural poor in Maluku Tenggara, workers, peasants, street children, university students, and NGO activists. / From my investigation, became clear that it was not Freire's concept of literacy that found favor with Indonesian educational practitioners; rather, it was his vision of education as a means of improving critical capacities within learners and of driving social transformation. No evidence could be found of any group or individuals in Indonesia applying Freire's approach in a systematic way and as a whole; most, rather, mixed this with other concepts, such as community organizing and community development. / The positive reception of Freire in Indonesia does not necessarily mean that his thought is accepted blindly or without critique. Several criticisms offered by Indonesian educators of the theories of Paulo Freire are highlighted in this study, although few of them have not been raised before.