Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

La thèse propose une déconstruction critique de l'argumentaire culturaliste, en la comparant à l'argumentaire constructiviste, au sein du débat sur les facteurs explicatifs de la résilience de l'autoritarisme en Chine contemporaine. La critique se pose comme réfutation herméneutique, épistémologique, historique ainsi que politique de l'argumentaire culturaliste. La thèse s'attaque principalement à l'analogie faite entre les concepts de confucianisme, de culture chinoise ainsi que d'autoritarisme. Elle soulève des questions sur le sens ainsi que la construction de ces concepts. Elle tente, en ce sens, de remettre en cause l'interprétation ainsi que les liens existants entre ces derniers pour faire l'état du débat ainsi que pour pousser la réflexion sur la résilience autoritaire de la Chine vers d'autres explications possibles. Le projet en lui-même, parce que limité, ne pose pas directement la question de la résilience autoritaire, il tente néanmoins modestement de réduire la portée de l'explication culturaliste concernant ce phénomène en Chine.

This dissertation explores how economic institutions governing finance and investment have contributed to growth in reform-era China. Economic and political reforms transformed Chinas prior centrally-planned economy. Although reforms incorporated elements of market institutions and private enterprise, state institutions exercising extensive authority over a wide range of economic affairs critically and fundamentally played a central role in transforming this economy from one of the worlds poorest to the worlds second largest in the span of one generation. I explain the emergence of a unique configuration of institutions supportive of industrial policy implemented by largely autonomous local government officials. In combination with state-directed bank credit, this local government industrial policy finance has played a significant and positive role in development of exports in China. Though private entrepreneurs are often seen as dynamic engines of growth in Chinas reform-era economy, I show the vast majority of entrepreneurs are low-skilled, low-productivity, and exhibit non-positive rates of capital accumulation. Most entrepreneurs would experience higher earnings were they not segmented into self-employment occupations by adverse socioeconomic conditions. Rather than engines of growth, Chinas entrepreneurs resemble more the vast numbers of informal sector self-employment prevalent in many developing countries.

As the country with biggest Internet population, by December 2011, China had at least 513 million Internet users. As the biggest developing country in the world, in the past three decades China experienced rapid social change and enormous economic development. The impacts of new media and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) on social change and development in China have attracted increasing attention among scholar communities. This dissertation aims to study the new media and ICT for social change and development phenomena in China. It draws upon data from my fieldwork and participant observations in the past three years as well as a nationwide large sample survey of ICT use among Chinese CSOs (civil society organizations). I situate this research primarily in the theoretical framework of communication for development and social change studies (e.g., Servaes, 1999; Servaes, 2008). In this research, new media and ICT for social change phenomena refer to the widely emerging new media and ICT for social change and development policies, projects, or actions initiated by different stakeholders including government, CSOs, and individual activists. Through a case analysis approach, this research analyzes specific new media and ICT for social change cases, conducted by different stakeholders, concerning urgent social change issues such as digital inequality, CSOs empowerment, government accountability and transparency, and hunger/malnutrition using various communication for development and social change theories as well as other new media studies theories and the ICT/new media for social change model that I propose in Chapter two. This research reveals: how different stakeholders engage in new media for social change and development interventions (policies, projects or actions); the communication channels involved in these interventions; the relation and the interactions of different stakeholders in these new media for social change interventions; the sustainability issue of these social change and development interventions. The findings of the research show that the new media for social change model I propose is an effective analytical framework for the study of new media for social change. The research reveals that a multi-channel perspective which incorporates ICTs and other communication channels as well as the interactions between different channels is of great significance in the study of new media for social change. Moreover, the analysis of the interactions between different communication channels shows that in the media environment of convergence culture (Jenkins, 2006), in social change actions, the relation between ICT channels and other communication channels is not an either/or relation. They interact with each and reinforce each other in the social change actions. The research also shows that the multi-stakeholders approach I employed can significantly enrich our knowledge of the new media for social change phenomena. The multi-dimensional relations and interactions between different stakeholders in social change interventions are important issues that the study of new media for social change should address.

Satellite television, an often-cited example of globalization, has proliferated in India since 1991. Although primarily a transnational pan-Asian phenomenon, satellite television's growth in India was aided by the rise of local cable providers and the government's economic liberalization policies. Global media corporations however emphasized Indian film based programs over Western programs in a bid to enter the Indian market. This strategy, in conjunction with the music and film industries, has made music television a pervasive phenomenon which includes channels like MTV and Channel V and musk based programs in other channels like Star, Zee, Sun, and ETV. Music television mainly features Indian film songs and pop music, but follows certain global genres and conventions such as the top ten format and VJs. This study situates the social and cultural impact of music television in the experience of globalization in India through a reception study conducted in Hyderabad. The main findings of this study are: (a) the discourses of music television and globalization are meaningful only to young middle class participants and not to older middle class and working class participants; (b) these participants decode music countdowns as enabling representation of the public to a greater extent than was possible under Doordarshan (state television) monopoly; (c) they decode the music video of “Made in India” in emotional/relational terms as a global recognition of India's national culture and perceive globalization as the rise of India to global prominence rather than the influx of global culture into India. While emotional/relational experiences in watching music television are common to all participants, only young middle class participants assume authority as the public and the nation through the orientalistic representations of the same on music television by situating their emotional/relational experiences in discourses of liberalization and globalization. The modern worldview that arises through these discourses is hence characterized as a hegemonic globality which arises in the negotiation between the imperial globality of capitalist modernity and the familial globality of emotional/relational values. The fact, however, that the discourses of imperial globality do not permit recognition of the epistemic authority or globality of emotional/relational values is taken as evidence of cultural imperialism.

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As the most well-known modern Japanese philosopher around the world, Nishida Kitarō’s (西田幾多郎) (1870–1945) Buddhist-inspired synthesis of Western philosophy into a mature and sophisticated non-dualism has been studied from a variety of angles. As the main focus of his works tends to be on the expansion of true self-awareness, less attention has been paid to his account of human relations, especially as developed in his essay “I and Thou” (Watashi to nanji, 私と汝). This dissertation aims to address this with a thorough analysis of this essay, including comparisons with other thinkers such as Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, and his own student Nishitani Keiji. The pair of “I” and “thou” will be examined through the lens of temporality, alterity, and ethics as it emerges in this text and connects with his other works. These analyses will be bookended with an overview of Nishida’s early philosophy on one side and his entry into political thought late in his life, with an eye to how persons and their relation to the world and each other was theorized at these points. Although much has been made of the significant changes in Nishida’s philosophy over time, I conclude with some thoughts on his relative unity on the nature of the true individual personality, which is established within a complex dialectic of oppositions to others grounded in the non-dual foundation of absolute nothingness. / Religion

No description available.