Mit dem „Aufruf zur Einmischung in eigener Sache“ trat am 12. September 1989 „Demokratie Jetzt“ als Bürgerbewegung in der DDR in die Öffentlichkeit und erhob nachdrücklich einen politischen Mitwirkungs- und Gestaltungsanspruch in der SED-Diktatur. Genau ein Vierteljahrhundert nach der Berliner Gründungsversammlung führte die Tagung „Aufbrüche der Zivilgesellschaft“ zahlreiche der damaligen Initiatorinnen und Initiatoren, Zeitzeugen, Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler und interessiertes Publikum zusammen. Der runde Jahrestag war Anlass, Reverenz zu erweisen den historischen Leistungen von „Demokratie Jetzt“ und „Bündnis 90“ in der Friedlichen Revolution, im deutschen Einigungsprozess und in der Bundesrepublik. Diesen Rückblick kombinierte die Konferenz mit der Frage, welche Impulse die Bürgerbewegung der DDR und die Friedliche Revolution geben können für die Zivilgesellschaft in ihrem Verhältnis zum Staat im 21. Jahrhundert. Es ging also darum, den Aufbruch von 1989 zu aktualisieren mit Blick auf eine Gegenwart, in der die konstituierenden Faktoren dieses Verhältnisses durch dynamische Prozesse wie die Digitalisierung selbst aufgebrochen zu werden scheinen. Redaktionsschluss: Februar 2017

Depuis le début des révoltes arabes de 2011, on assiste, au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord à l’émergence politique de communautés jusqu’alors marginalisées, à la périphérie du pouvoir. La monarchie pétrolière du Koweït ne fait pas exception; c’est ainsi que les Bédouins, naturalisés depuis le début des années soixante et intégrés tardivement à la communauté des citoyens ont à leur tour émis leurs doléances auprès du pouvoir des Sabah. C’est ce phénomène que cette thèse analyse, le replaçant dans son contexte historique et politique. Elle explique les implications politiques du changement social parmi les Bédouins - à savoir l’émergence d’une nouvelle génération particulièrement virulente depuis le début des années 2000 - et démontre comment ce phénomène ne saurait se comprendre sans une lecture plus large du système d’autorité sur lequel s’est construite la monarchie des Al-Sabah depuis le 18e siècle lorsqu’elle s’est constituée en dynastie tribale. La contribution originale de cette thèse réside dans son approche méthodologique d’histoire sociologique comparative qui permet de déchiffrer la nature de l’ordre et de l’autorité politiques au Koweït. L’étude montre que les aspects fondamentaux de la structure d’autorité contemporaine de la dynastie des Al-Sabah trouvent leurs origines dans les logiques dynastiques des tribus arabes classiques telles qu’elles ont été analysées par l’auteur médiéval, Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), dans son œuvre Al-Muqaddimah. / Since the unfolding of the Arab revolts in 2011, we have witnessed the rise and revolts of marginalized communities at the periphery of power everywhere in the MENA region. Kuwait too has witnessed since the start of the millennium the rise of its periphery, its naturalized tribesmen, latecomers to the nation’s fabric. In this study, I analyzed this phenomenon and placed it in its deeper historical and political context. I explained that the implications of socio-political change happening within Kuwait’s badu population can only be understood if the nature of the authority structure of the Al-Sabah’s monarchy is properly comprehended. The novelty of the thesis lies in its historical sociological approach to decipher the nature of political order and authority in Kuwait. It argued that the core aspects of the contemporary authority structure of the Al-Sabah’s monarchy can be traced back to the original tribal dynasty functioning according to the logics of political power of Arabian dynasties as analyzed by the early Muslim scholar, Ibn Khaldun in his Al-Muqaddimah.

A Ética Nicomaqueia tem como tema central a felicidade (eudaimonia). No entanto, há um problema, pelo menos aparente, em relação a como a eudaimonia é caracterizada principalmente no livro I e no livro X da EN. A partir do que é desenvolvido no primeiro livro e nos livros centrais da EN, podemos entender que a felicidade contém boas ações, isto é, ações de acordo com as virtudes de caráter. No entanto, no livro X, a felicidade é identificada com a contemplação, ou seja, o exercício da virtude teórica, e as ações moralmente virtuosas acabam ficando em uma posição inferior. Surge, então, o problema de determinar se a felicidade é um ou mais bens e como combiná-los. Esse problema foi apontado por W. F. R. Hardie no artigo “O bem final na ética de Aristóteles” e, a partir de sua publicação, iniciou-se uma discussão a respeito de a eudaimonia ser um fim inclusivo ou um fim dominante. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar a noção de eudaimonia na EN a partir da discussão mencionada acima. Para isso, analiso as passagens e os conceitos importantes para avaliar os argumentos apresentados e as interpretações sustentadas pelos comentadores inseridos nessa discussão. Ao longo do trabalho, mostro que a identificação da eudaimonia com a atividade teórica virtuosa não é incompatível com o exercício das virtudes morais e que ambos fazem parte da eudaimonia. / The central theme of the Nicomachean Ethics is happiness (eudaimonia). However there is a problem, at least apparent, regarding the characterization of eudaimonia, particulary in books I and X of the NE. Based on what is developed in the first and central books of NE we can understand that happiness contains good actions, that is, actions in accordance with character virtues. In book X, however, happiness is identified with contemplation, that is, the exercise of theorethical virtue, and morally virtuous actions ends up occupying a lower position. What follows is the emergence of the problem of determining whether happiness is one or more goods and how to combine them. This problem was pointed out by W. F. R. Hardie in the paper “The final good in Aristotle's Ethics”, and since its publication, it started a discussion about eudaimonia being an inclusive or a dominant end. The aim of this work is to study the idea of eudaimonia in the NE based on the discussion mentioned above. To achieve that, I analyze important passages and concepts to assess the arguments presented and the interpretations sustained by critics involved in the discussion. In this study, I show that the identification of eudaimonia with theorethical activity is not inconsistent with the exercise of moral virtues, and that both are part of eudaimonia.

This thesis assesses the extent of military prerogatives in Pakistan’s domestic politics, by focusing on Sino-Pakistani relations in the post 9/11 period. The study departs from the coup-centric approach largely adopted in the literature on civil-military relations and develops a continuum of civil-military relations which identifies four different intensities of civilian control over the military. Such a scale is deployed to gauge empirically the military’s sway in four decision-making areas: internal security, foreign policy, economic policy and elite recruitment. This structure is used to analyse the three case studies presented in the thesis: 1) the development of the port of Gwadar; 2) the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor; and 3) Sino-Pakistani relations in the Afghan scenario. The empirical chapters are organised around elite interviews conducted during fieldwork in Pakistan and triangulated with primary and secondary sources. From the analysis conducted in the thesis emerges a new pattern of civil-military relations in Pakistan, a situation in which the civilians and the military are sharing power to the benefit of both parties. The military have found it in their interest to exercise power less overtly and to retain control of internal security and foreign policy behind the curtain of a democratic dispensation. The civilians, on their side, have managed to erode military influence in the areas of elite recruitment and economic policy, in their attempts to tackle the energy crisis and to win the 2018 general elections. Such a pattern starts taking shape in the 2008-2013 period, but it becomes more crystallised in the post-2013 time frame. The thesis assesses specifically military prerogatives in the context of Pakistan’s relations with China, but also extends the picture in the final chapter to the wider developments in civil-military relations in Pakistan, in order to provide a comprehensive and solid analysis of the issue under examination.

R.D. Haun. / "January 18, 1957." Based on a thesis, M.I.T. Dept. of Physics, January 7, 1957. / Bibliography: p. 63. / Army Signal Corps Contract DA36-039-sc-64637. Dept. of the Army Task 3-99-06-108 and Project 3-99-00-100.

This thesis examines the role of the secular State in the making of modern constitutional government in India and argues that the practice of constitutional secularism is an unrealised pedagogical project whose goal is the transformation of Indian society and its politics. Toleration is the core value defended by the liberal secular State and the Indian State is no exception; however, its institution in the Indian Constitution compels religious groups to reformulate their traditions as doctrinal truths. Through decisions of Indian courts I demonstrate that this is an odd demand made on non-Semitic traditions like Hinduism because even up the contemporary moment it is difficult to cast these traditions in terms of doctrinal truths. Though reformulated religious identities are occluded descriptions of Indian religious traditions, I argue that they have gained considerable force in contemporary India because they were drawn into constitutional government as the problem of accommodating minority interests. Accommodating minority identities was part of an explicitly stated pedagogical project through which the British colonial government was to steward what they supposed to be irreconcilably fragmented 'interests' that comprised Indian society towards a unified polity. Though the Indian Constitution reworked the politics of interests toward the amelioration of social and economic 'backwardness', I argue that the rights granted to the Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, and Minorities continue to mobilise these groups as reformulated religious identities with associated interests. Thus as recognisably occluded accounts of Indian society, I demonstrate that reformed religious identities and indeed the practice of secular constitutionalism functions like a discursive veil that screens off Indian social experience from the task of generating solutions to legal and institutional problems.

Through a historical account of the Pro-Canada/Action Canada Network (PCN/ACN), this dissertation examines coalition formation among social movements. It argues that the complex process of cross-sectoral coalition formation and thus the potential for convergence of social movements can best be understood by combining elements of different analytical frameworks. This dissertation draws on elements of the two dominant paradigms for the study of social movements, resource mobilization theory and new social movement theory. Specifically, it utilizes the formers' attention to the specifics of organization and structure and the latter's focus on the discursive formation of identities. Both are then combined with the uniquely Canadian but theoretically underdeveloped concept of the popular sector and a neo-gramscian perspective on social formation and mobilization that draws on political economy and class-analytical traditions. With its formation in 1988 around opposition to the Canada - U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the PCN/ACN was an early example of a broader trend for trade and investment to become key arenas for social and political contention at the turn of the century. This dissertation challenges the assumptions of most analytical frameworks concerning the limits to coalition formation and argues that the nature of the unifying issue is an important determinant of the potential for the growth and deepening of social alliances. After reviewing the historical conjuncture in which the PCN/ACN emerged, this dissertation traces the history of key sectors and member organizations - labour, women and ecumenical justice - paying specific attention to their approach to political engagement and the issue of free trade. As a result, it establishes the necessary background to understand both the initial basis for unity and the Network's progression beyond a lowest common denominator alliance around a single issue, to a broader mandate. This dissertation provides empirical evidence on which to judge the potential of social movements to displace other discourses and agencies on the left. Given the contemporary interest in the role of social movements, NGOs and civil society, this dissertation provides some essential signposts for two types of practitioners: academics seeking to understand outcomes and activists hoping to determine them.

Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrichs-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 1908.

Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrichs-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 1908.

Aristóteles é considerado um precursor do problema da vontade livre. Apesar disto, ele é também considerado por muitos de seus intérpretes ou um determinista, alguém que negou precisamente a liberdade da vontade, e um compatibilista, isto é, alguém que procurou compatibilizar o determinismo com a responsabilização ou um autor que iniciou a discussão, mas que não tinha muita clareza sobre o problema, pois este não apareceria com toda a sua força senão após os desenvolvimentos da filosofia estóica. Esta tese pretende responder a ambas estas interpretações. Para isso, é feita uma análise das passagens em que Aristóteles trata da responsabilização moral, na Ética Eudêmia II.6-11 e na Ética Nicomaquéia III.1-7. O objetivo é mostrar que sua teoria da responsabilização moral não é apenas incompatível com o determinismo da vontade, e, portanto, ele não pode ser um compatibilista, mas que a sua teoria dos atos voluntários humanos é coerente com isso, ou seja, ele produziu uma teoria dos princípios das ações que é indeterminista. Aristóteles pode assim ser considerado como tendo definido, sem confusões, o que significa para a ‘vontade’ ser livre, mesmo que ele não tenha se valido e nem definido o termo ‘vontade’. Ele não faz uso deste termo, porque tem outro termo que cumpre esta função: ‘escolha deliberada’. Aristóteles, portanto, defende uma tese da escolha livre que é necessária para sua teoria da responsabilização moral não compatibilista. / Aristotle is taken to be a precursor to the ‘free-will’ problem. In spite of that, he is considered also by many scholars to be either a determinist, someone who deny the freedom of the will, and a compatibilist, someone who tried to make cohere determinism and responsibility, or an author that begun this discussion, but did not have much clarity about it, because this would have to wait the developments of the Stoic School, in Antiquity. This thesis answers both these interpretations. To accomplish this, an analysis of the passages in which Aristotle deals with moral responsibility is done, in the Eudemian Ethics II.6-11 and in the Nicomachean Ethics III.1-7. The goal is to show that his theory of responsibility is not compatible with determinism of the will and, therefore, he cannot be sustained a compatibilist, and that his theory about voluntary acts is consistent with it: he left an indeterminist theory of the principles of actions. That is why Aristotle can be taken to have answered, without any confusions, what means to the ‘will’ to be ‘free’, even though he has not used the term, ‘will’. He does not use this term, because he has another one that can play this role: deliberate choice. Aristotle, therefore, claims that free choice is necessary to his incompatibilist theory of responsibility.