Abstract C-Level Paper in Political Science, by David Olsson, Autumn 2008. Supervisor: Malin Stegman McCallion. “Regime Type and Trade Policy: Has Increased Democratization Contributed to Lower Trade Barriers Among Autocratic States?”   In this paper a new two-level game theory, based on previous research and deductive reasoning, is constructed and tested empirically. The purpose is to examine if developing new democracies, trading with developing autocracies, is an explanatory factor of trade liberalization among the latter. The research questions are: 1) Have tariff rates in developing autocratic countries followed the pattern of reduced tariffs among their developing new democratic trading partners? And; 2) If this is the case, is there a relative shift in trade flows that confirms this change to be an effect of the new democracies’ presumed influence?                       In order to sufficiently carry out an empirical scrutiny, seven other determinants found to have effects on trade policies in previous research, are accounted for using a “most similar systems design”. For reasons of delimitation, six autocracies and their fifteen most important trading partners, observed 1980-1999, have been paired and analyzed. Each pair consists of one autocracy that trades with new democracies and one that does not; regarding the other determinants they are as similar as possible. The used material is the World Development Indicators, the Polity IV Dataset, the Yearbook of International Trade Statistics, the World Economic Outlook Database, the Database of Political Institutions, statistics from the World Trade Organization, the Dataset of Armed Conflicts, and the Unweighted Average Tariffs Measurement.                          The conclusion is that there are no indicators that affirm the theory and research questions. However, the theory is not unambiguously falsified. Hence, studies on more countries and time spans are needed.

No description available.

In a quantitative study in 2007, Davenport found that autocratic military regimes statistically face a higher risk of electoral violence than authoritarian party-backed regimes. This thesis has attempted to link Davenports findings with theories on military belligerence presented by Lai and Slater (2006) as well as Geddes et al. (2014), and thereby contribute to our understanding of the matter by investigating the potential causal mechanisms connecting regime type and electoral violence. The analysis specifically focuses on differences in pre-election violence by comparing the 2008 election in Pakistan and the 2007 election in Uzbekistan. Evidence from the cases suggest that there is some support for a covariation between regime type and levels of pre-election violence, although there are alternative explanations worth considering before one can determine whether or not a causal relationship can be observed. Finally, the findings indicate that military regime belligerence or lack of knowledge on how to use nonviolent political repressive tools in order to sway the elections do not explain the observed variation. Rather, the thesis suggests that levels of pre-election violence is more likely to be affected by other conflicts in the region, the design of the election campaign and whether there are established influential opposition parties present in the country.

This study examines political engagement among Syrian students at the University of Jordan who are either refugees, asylum seekers or children of Jordanian mothers. By adopting Ekman and Amnå’s conceptualization of political participation and analysing 15 semi-structured interviews, I find that the Syrian students are both engaged in manifest and latent forms of political participation. The engagement is mostly canalised through individual activities rather than collective activities. Most importantly, the engagement is less common in domestic issues than non-domestic issues. When the students are engaged in domestic issues, it is mostly in latent forms of political participation and in private activities not risking revealing their opinions to the general public. Interestingly, I find that the students are interested in Jordan public affairs but that this interest is not transformed into political action aiming to affect Jordanian political decisions. The pattern of political participation in several ways corresponds with the students’ perceptions of risks. The Syrian students associate political engagement in Jordan with perceived risks such as being deported back to Syria or facing racism. Respondents expressed that they were not politically engaged because of the risks that it could entail and engagement in activities connected to Jordan public affairs seems to be perceived as more of a risk compared to being engaged in non-domestic issues. This seems to be particularly true for activities carried out in public. My findings are important as they shed light on political engagement in authoritarian contexts in the Global South and among marginalised non-citizens.

There are surprisingly detailed similarities between Germany and the USA on their way towards the Second World War. In this paper, I have compared the nations' expansionist philosophies, their encounter with racism, and the internal conflicts between authoritarian leadership and democracy. I began with an overview of Manifest Destiny and the German myth of the East. Next, I summed up the deep changes that the First World War caused for both societies and how they went into the Great Depression. I examined the rise of scientific racism as part of the international eugenics movement and the emergence of populist leaders during the economic crisis. It became clear that neither expansionism nor racism were genuine German ideologies. In fact, the American Manifest Destiny served as a role-model for German plans in the East. Even the racist concepts of the Third Reich were strongly influenced by American scientists. The main difference seems to be the experience with the First World War and the diversity of American protest during the crisis.

The ongoing rise in the number of young, educated individuals emigrating from Turkey, particularly those expressing dissident views, signals a critical reaction to the country's increasing tilt towards authoritarianism. This study delves into this phenomenon, seeking to comprehend the intricate relationship between growing authoritarianism and the escalating emigration trend. By conducting in-depth, episodic interviews with Turkish emigrants, the study unravels the personal narratives that have been shaped by the changing political climate in Turkey. These narratives underscore the critical role that the perception and experience of increasing authoritarianism play in their decision to emigrate. The narratives not only shed light on the individual motives and experiences of emigrants but also offer a window into the broader socio-political transformations unfolding in Turkey.

This paper examines the hypothesis that a change in the elite increases the probability of armed conflict onset. The paper combines the newly constructed WhoGov dataset on cabinet members, with UCDP data on armed conflicts and rebel group. It analyzes changes in the retention rate among cabinet members and average years in cabinet, and how they affect armed conflict – measured as armed conflict onset and rebel group onset. A linear regression model, with country- and year fixed effects, in addition to time-varying control variables, is applied to test the main hypothesis. In addition, three heterogeneity tests are conducted. First, the paper examines whether there are any differences between democracies and autocracies. Second, it examines the differences between changes in cabinet size (widening or shrinking). Third, it analyzes if the effects are bigger for large changes in the elite. Four main conclusions are reached in the paper. First, the results indicates that a decrease in retention rate increases the probability for both conflict and rebel onset. The magnitudes of the estimated effects seem to be sizeable. They are larger in conflict onsets than rebel onsets, in relation to their respective means. Second, for armed conflict onset, the results are driven by autocracies. Third, the probability for armed conflict is larger following a large change in the elites (retention rate). Fourth, no difference in changes to cabinet size is observed.

The United States and Russia are two major superpowers with governments that are run in different manners. Central to a government's and country's defense is their intelligence systems. The intelligence systems of these two countries are run as part of the government and are integral to its functioning. The purpose of this thesis is to discuss how both the governments and intelligence systems are structured and do they coincide with their respective systems. Using a case study on the United States and Russia, their intelligence systems and governments a comparison was drawn. While looking at the history of both governments and communities and what they are like in the present day it was determined that there exist similarities in structures. As the countries grew and modernized so did their intelligence community. The history of how the intelligence community developed in their respective country and interacted with citizens both foreign and domestic showed striking similarities to the governments own workings. Another important find was the rules and restrictions that were involved in the government's evolution was also paralleled in the intelligence communities evolution. In the United States there are regulations against intruding into the lives and properties of citizens and the intelligence community reflects this in executive order 12333 that states intelligence communities cannot collect information on citizens unless it is imperative to the safety and security of the country.

德國愛國詩人海涅 (Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856) 於1831年流亡至法國，在闊別祖國13年之後，第一次返鄉時目睹祖國封建專制，社會瀰漫於宗教迷思的狀態，於是在回程時寫下遊記詩《德國，一個冬天的童話》(Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen)，作品中利用當時的人、事、物，中世紀典故、古希臘羅馬時期典故以及宗教典故等反映當時的政治光景，是海涅不滿當時的政治情景而作的諷諭詩 (Zeitsatiren)。作者在文本中多處使用聖經典故嘲諷當時政治社會議題，例如文檢制度與復古運動等。由於在台灣一般人對西方基督教文化的理解有限，聖經中的宗教典故對大多數人是陌生的。所以本文的目的在於探究海涅的遊記詩《德國，一個冬天的童話》中宗教典故之運用，希望藉由本研究的分析與詮釋，有助於華語世界的讀者藉著對聖經中宗教典故的認識，進而對海涅所諷刺的議題能窺其堂奧，更深入了解這部作品的精華。 / German patriotic poet Heine (Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856) was exiled to France in 1831. Thirteen years after leaving his homeland, when first he returned to Germany, Heine observed that the state was still characterized by feudal autocracy, and that society was filled with religious superstition. Upon his return, he wrote the poem, "Germany, a Winter's Tale" (Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen), in which he reflected on the political situation in terms of the issues of his time, Greco-Roman and medieval allusions, and other religious allusions. The satire (Zeitsatiren) was written by a Heine dissatisfied with the status quo. In the text, many biblical allusions are applied to ridicule contemporary popular topics, such as Cultural Censorship and Restoration. For readers in Taiwan, the religious allusions constitute a barrier to understanding and most Taiwanese are unfamiliar with the Bible. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the usage of the religious allusions of Heine’s poem "Germany, a Winter's Tale" in hopes that the analysis and interpretation offered will help Chinese-speaking readers understand the religious allusions of the Bible and better appreciate the issues ironically highlighted in this work.

The thesis concerns the artworks by Johan Sylvius in the staircase, upper vestibule, upper north guard room and upper gallery of the Drottningholm Palace, as painted performances. They are studied as performative cultural encounters with a historically situated beholder but will also be regarded in relation to their spatial and artistic surrounding. From the theoretical framework of performativity and reception aesthetics, the results indicate that the images have the potential to inscribe the beholder within certain postulates on power relations and politics of identity, through working with splendour, naturalism, narrative and the function of the rooms they are located in. The results further point to the images’ manners of effecting the beholder on several levels through an employed pluralism and lastly, that they both build upon and re-produce the relation between monarch/nobility, where the former is the sole figure who both grants status and can remove it in an instance.