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On the occasion of his farewell lecture, Manfred Mols looks back to his academic work of the last four decades, and discusses the essential meaning of area studies.<br> He tries to clarify the important denotation of institutes for regional researchers. Area studies should help us to understand changing processes in international policies and they do. He underlines his critical point of view with the position and treatment of area studies among certain universities in Germany.

A pesar de la potencial del ecoturismo, todavía existen muchas comunidades que enfrentan obstáculos en realizar un proyecto exitoso del turismo. Vivir en el área natural o protegida no significa que la población local esté ganando del ecoturismo y desarrollándose. Un proyecto de ecoturismo exitoso no sólo tiene la carga de ser sostenible y dar beneficio al medio ambiente, el proyecto tiene que incluir la población local en una manera integral. El problema que será analizado en esta tesis es la multitud de barreras que existen frente a la movilización e integración de la población local, las cuales prohíben que la comunidad sea una parte fundamental del ecoturismo. En examinar los estudios de caso de proyectos de ecoturismo que han sido exitosos en conservar el medioambiente e integrar la comunidad local, se verán las estrategias que una comunidad puede emplear para poder superar las barreras de la movilización e integración y hacerse parte integral de un proyecto de ecoturismo.

This thesis is an analysis of the recruitment process of the Shining Path -SP- and Revolutionary Movement “Tupac Amaru” -MRTA- guerrilla groups. Although SP was considered more aggressive, it gained more followers than MRTA. This thesis tries to explain why. Social Revolution Theory and Social Movement Theory provide explanations based on issues of “poverty”, disregarding the specific characteristics of the guerrilla groups and their supporters, as well as the influence of specific persuasive processes between the leaders of the groups and their followers. Integrative complexity theory, on the contrary, provides a consistent method to analyze cognitive processes: because people tend to reject complex and sophisticated explanations that require mental efforts, simplicity was the key for success. To prove which guerrilla group provided a simpler worldview, a sample of official documents of SP and MRTA are compared. Finally, content analysis is applied through the Paragraph Completion Test (P.C.T.).

This thesis examines the involvement of the United States in the decade-long trade dispute before the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the European Union's preferential banana regime. Washington's justification for bringing this case to the WTO comes from Section 301 of the U.S. trade act, which allows for disputes to be undertaken if U.S. "interests" are violated; however, this is the first case ever undertaken by the United States that does not directly threaten any American banana industry, nor affect any American jobs. Why, then, would the United States involve itself in this European-Caribbean-Latin American dispute? It is the contention of this thesis that the United States thrust itself headlong into this debate for two reasons: domestically, the United States Trade Representative came under pressure, via the White House and Congress, from Chiquita CEO Carl Lindner, who in the past decade donated more than $7.1 million to American politicians to take the case to the WTO. Internationally, the United States used the case as an opportunity to assert its power over Europe, with the Eastern Caribbean islands being caught in the economic crossfire. According to existing literature, in undertaking this case, the United States did as any nation would: it operated within both domestic and international levels, satisfying at each level key interests, with the overall goal of maintaining the nation's best interests.

Since President Hugo Chávez Frias came to power in 1999, the Venezuelan political space has become militarized. The study focused on examining how and why the military entered into the traditional civilian space in Venezuela and militarized the political system. The purpose of this thesis was to analyze the participation of the Venezuelan military in state affairs, the reasons why this institution became such an active political actor, and how this process evolved over the last five years. Findings revealed that the Venezuelan military became involved in national politics through a series of prerogatives granted by the government of Hugo Chávez. These military prerogatives were granted in key state areas such as the cabinet, legislature and police/intelligence. Also, by using the Rational Choice Model it could be examined of why President Chávez, as the purposive actor, made the choice of militarizing Venezuelan politics. This was a value-maximizing alternative among a set of other alternatives to accomplish Chávez's major political goals.

Through an historical analysis, an in-depth examination of Mexican legislation, and an evaluation of scholarly work, this thesis explores the relationship between the government of Mexico and the media, specifically television. The central hypothesis is that Mexican government regulations have been used to uphold the constitutional mandate requiring television media to serve the public interest. The analysis shows that the Mexican government has consistently favored commercial broadcasters over public interests. This is evident not only in written documents and in the manner in which the regulations have been implemented, but in the favoritism shown in the granting of government television concessions. The conclusion is that the Mexican government has been unsuccessful in promoting a television industry that safeguards the public interest. Instead, government actions have promoted private monopolies in the television industry which have rendered public broadcasting inefficient.

This research investigated the causes and effects of corruption in Puerto Rico. First, it examined incidences of corruption in Puerto Rico in an effort to create a linkage between the historical and contemporary causes of corruption in the island. It used both an agency and a structural approach to further explain the country's contemporary causes of corruption. Its basic finding was that the causes of corruption in Puerto Rico are the blurred boundaries between the private and public sectors, lack of elite competition, lack of elite accountability, weak mass participation, and the mismanagement of material resources. This thesis also examined empirical evidence that demonstrates the effects of corruption. The analysis revealed that corruption in Puerto Rico during the last decade has decreased Puerto Rican socio-economic outputs and investment sources. The study concluded that while anti-corruption measures have improved in the island, they have not adequately focused on the social measures to effectively combat corruption. On that score, the study highlighted the role played by public officials in perpetuating corruption in the island.

It is the key assertion of this thesis that Kazakhstan is determined to keep its Soviet-era nuclear capacity and become the world's third largest nuclear power should circumstances move in that direction. The Republic of Kazakhstan reneged on its original commitment to repatriate this material to Russia for final disposition. My tenure at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, as well as the use of newly available declassified data on the Kazakhstan nuclear issue, and open government sources, supports the major arguments of my thesis. For primary sources in Kazakh and Russian languages, I utilized the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). Both the external factors, including the competitive post-Soviet security environment in Eurasia, and complex and challenging domestic factors such as trans-regional social movements, clan ties, ethno-political cleavages, authoritarianism and government corruption, cast serious doubt on the future of Kazakhstan as a nuclear weapon free state.