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Conversion to Islam in the Ottoman Balkans initially followed a pattern similar to the one established by Bulliet for the regions incorporated in the course of the seventh and eighth centuries into the Islamic realm. By the early eighteenth century, close to forty percent of the Balkan population belonged to the Muslim community. However, Islamization came to a sudden halt in most of the Balkan lands in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. / I have sought an explanation for this phenomenon in kisve bahasi petitions, which reflect the unique economic and social conditions in the Ottoman Empire during the period 1670s--1730s. The transformation from religious syncretism to religious conservatism in the second part of the seventeenth century changed the nature of conversion by introducing ceremonies and documentation of conversion. I argue that the practice of granting kisve bahasi evolved into an institution of conversion, which substituted to a certain extent for the devsirme institution. For the socially weak, the kisve bahasi institution served as a form of social welfare. Conversion to Islam for the new Muslims converted through the kisve bahasi institution was, therefore, primarily a pragmatic rather than spiritual affair. I also argue that the process of conversion in the Balkans was cut short by a premature "laggards" stage in the period 1670s--1730s. This development, which points to the uniqueness of the process of conversion in the Balkans, may have been due to the rise of a more prosperous class of non-Muslims as a result of the Ottoman Empire's integration into the world economy.

Liuben Stoicho Karavelov was a Bulgarian intellectual, who called for political, social and cultural reforms. He was a firm convert to eighteenth century western socio-political philosophies of representative government, as well as to individual and national freedoms--a devotee of liberte, egalite, fraternite--who became the clarion voice of the south Slav and Bulgarian liberation movements on the Balkan peninsula during the latter half of the nineteenth century (1867-1879). Although little is known about him in the western, especially the English-speaking world, this Russian-educated Bulgarian journalist, publicist, revolutionary and literary figure, occupies a special place in the annals of modern Bulgaria. This dissertation examines the role of Liuben Karavelov in the final phase of the Bulgarian and south Slav liberation from the Ottoman empire, as a persistent proponent of unity among the south Slavs and their federation with the neighboring Christian nations on the peninsula. Native Bulgarian, Russian and Serbian sources are used. A brief historiographic and bibliographic essay introduces a study of Liuben Karavelov's background and educational preparation (1834-1866), his political and literary reform efforts in Serbia (1867-1868), his revolutionary propaganda contributions as the fiery editor of Svoboda Freedom and Nezavisimost Independence , Bulgarian language newspapers published in Bucharest, Romania (1869-1874), and his international efforts as foreign correspondent (1867-1868) and as war correspondent of the Russian newspapers Golos The Voice , Moskovskie Vedomosti Moscow Register , and Odesskii Vestnik Odessa Journal during the Serbo-Turkish war of 1876 and the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878.

In this thesis the rationales of corporate risk management, as well as the implementation of different risk management strategies and the use of risk management instruments in Croatian and Slovenian companies have been investigated. Based on arguments arising from the review of the literature, we have proposed several hypotheses. We have tested whether the decision to hedge or not, and the decision to hedge with derivatives made by Croatian and Slovenian non-financial companies, is a function of six factors – financial distress costs, agency costs, capital market imperfections and costly external financing, taxes, managerial utility maximisation and hedge substitutes. We have also tested the assumption that corporate risk management is more developed or has different rationales among Slovenian than among Croatian companies. On the basis of our research results, it could be concluded that the explored hedging rationales have little predictive power in explaining corporate risk management decisions both in Croatian and Slovenian companies. The evidence based on univariate and multivariate empirical relations between the decision to hedge or use derivatives in Croatian companies and the predicted theories of hedging fails to provide support for any of the tested hypotheses but one - capital market imperfections and costly external financing. The univariate analysis and multivariate regression conducted for Slovenian companies have revealed that there is no statistically significant explanatory variable for the decision to hedge; therefore we can conclude it is not dependent on any of the predicted theories of hedging. The decision to use derivatives, however, has been shown as dependent on the size of the company. The multivariate test has proven a positive relation between the use of derivatives and the size of Slovenian companies, which supports the informational and transactional scale economies argument that larger firms will be more likely to use derivatives. The analysis conducted to explore differences between risk management practices in Slovenian and Croatian companies has shown statistically significant evidence that Slovenian companies use all types of derivatives, especially structured derivatives, more intensively than Croatian companies. Additionally, Croatian companies use simple risk management instruments like natural hedging to a greater extent in comparison with Slovenian companies. These findings are consistent with our research prediction that Slovenian companies have more advanced risk management practices than Croatian companies.

The primary goal of this thesis is to collect, record and interpret the available coin evidence from the territory of modern Bulgaria during the late Hellenistic and early Roman Imperial period, from an archaeological, historical and numismatic perspective. In so doing the work documents the transition and integration of the monetary system of ancient Thrace to that of the Roman world. The evidence examined covers over 250 years, from the establishment of the province of Macedonia in 146 BC down to the reign of Trajan (AD 98-117). Of foremost importance in this process are the introduction, distribution and use of the denarius in the local coin market. The evidence under study was collected from the area of ancient Moesia and Thrace, an area recognized as a frontier zone in the early Roman Empire. Previously Thrace was never the subject of a comprehensive numismatic study that integrated the existing archeological and historical record for such a critical period of time. The purposely studied coin finds (both hoards and single coins, over 48,000 pieces) allowed for the application of statistical analysis to the coin data, revealing important military, economic and fiscal tendencies. The results document a culture well accustomed to the use of coins as means of payment long before the arrival of the Roman currency. Given these circumstances, it is no surprise that as denarii were introduced during the 1st century BC, the market quickly adjusted to new economic relations. Tracing the regional use and distribution of coins, the study bears witness to how local communities benefited from their strategic location and native resources. The main contribution of this work lies in the systematic comparison between the Late Hellenistic, Thracian, Celtic and Roman coinages that circulated together in a region that was of great strategic importance to the Roman Empire. Mechanisms of introduction and acceptance of Roman coins as financial tools have been documented and interpreted both from a chronological and geographical standpoint. Based on comprehensive analyses, this thesis concludes that the nature of the Thracian and Moesian society and economy, as well as the supply of coins, followed the Imperial and interregional trends as an integral part of the Roman Empire.

The thesis focuses on the chronological identification and detection of the discursive analogies between the category of 'the nation‘ and those of 'the West‘, 'Europe‘, 'democracy‘ and 'independence‘ in the Kosovo Albanian ethnonationalist narrative. The study represents a multi-dimensional exercise analysing the ethnonationalist discourse from a wide array of sample text which was produced during two relevant historical periods: the period between 1870-1930 and the period between 1980-2000. The first interval covers the period which is known in the Albanian history as the 'National Rebirth‘. The second deals with the recent history of political resistance of Kosovo Albanians and their 'sudden‘ discursive shift, from the narrative of 'unification with the Motherland Albania‘ (the unificationist/irredentist discourse) to the narrative of 'the independent Kosovo‘ (the independentist discourse) The main theoretical pillars of the study focus on the theories about the nation (specifically, its ethnic variation) and its narrative, the nationalism—as well as the representational systems of orientalism and balkanism (Said, 1978; Todorova, 1997). The study demonstrates that the discourse about the nation and national identity among Albanians is produced primarily through the internalisation of the external, orientalist approach in defining and understanding the social reality of the Balkan societies. Such internalisation is analysed through the prism of local adoption of the sociocultural and sociopolitical hegemonizing discourse that constituted the Western orientalist 'knowledge‘ about the Balkans—and, specifically, Albanians. The study notes that such discursive strategy of internalisation of orientalist traits within the ethnonationalist narrative is not limited to the Albanian societies (in both Albania and Kosovo) but appears as common feature in most of the societies/nations of the former Yugoslavia. In time, the study highlights, such process of 'nesting orientalisms‘ (Bakic-Hayden, 1996) was coupled with the phenomenon of the regional, exclusionist and competing ethnonationalist narratives which was aimed at constituing a nation‘s 'westernness‘ and 'Europeanness‘ through denying it to the other.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the ‘instrumental territorialisation’ (a concept based on Foucauldian and Deleuzian premises) of the Western Balkans, and the manner in which the emergence of territory is enmeshed within wider political, cultural and artistic dynamics. Understanding how these processes are involved in the field of culture - more precisely visual art - presents the leading challenge of this study. One of my central arguments is that the ‘creation of a territory’ can be understood through the lens of artistic terms and practices. I use the notions of territorialisation, panopticon and heterotopia to explore the functioning of visual art in the Western Balkans, while interrogating the different ways in which territorial arrangements have been implicated in the rise of new cultural policies and practices. The study relies on visual methods and interviews to explore the establishment of a new region, through this process of instrumental territorialisation, which has resulted in a specific political and cultural arrangement. The research proceeds to a demonstration of the way in which the cultural changes and artistic practices in the Western Balkans, in all their different aspects, are associated with a plethora of political narratives, discourses, arrangements and regulations.

Although in recent years studies on secession and self-determination have increased, research on why secessions succeed remains limited. This thesis contributes to filling this gap by arguing that a secession can be regarded as successful when it results in the creation of a recognised and viable entity. In order to examine this assumption empirically, the thesis applied a process-tracing methodology to the case study of Kosovo, a case that had both an unsuccessful attempt to secede in 1991 and a far more successful one in 2008. It discovered that changes taking place at four different levels, local, state, regional and global, from 1991 to 2008, created the conditions for Kosovo to ensure international support from influential states that would promote its international recognition and would support its internal viability after it unilaterally declared independence for the second time. Finally, this thesis, recognising that Kosovo’s statehood is still contested, has expanded the initial assumption of international recognition and internal viability and concluded that a unilateral secession is successful when the extent of international recognition and internal viability renders it irreversible.

This thesis examines the construction and articulation of diasporic cultural ident4y among Turkish male hip-hop youth living in Kreuzberg, Berlin. The research reflects upon the narratives and life-worlds of two predominantly male youth groups, whose 'habitats of meaning' are primarily defined by the ethnic enclave in which they are living. The research strategy mainly involves qualitative research techniques such as 'rapport', 'in-depth interviews' and 'semi-structured interviews', and attempts to go beyond the dichotomy of 'objectivism' and 'subjectivism' by combining the two in a hybrid form. The main assumption of this study is that Berlin-Turkish hip-hop youngsters have recently developed a politics of diaspora to cope with their structural outsiderism in their country of settlement. The social and cultural space created by Turkish migrants and their descendants in Kreuzberg, or in what they call 'Little Istanbul', constitutes a diasporic space which provides the modem diasporic subject with a syotholic bridge between the diaspora and their homeland. In this diasporic space, they tend to gain an 'imagined sense of belonging' to their homeland Turkey, which has been 'deferred' as a spiritual, cultural and political metaphor, on the other hand, conversely they also develop a strong sense of homing to the 'Turkified' Kreuzberg. Besides shedding light on the notion of diasporic identity, this study also attempts to underline two major constituents shaping diasporic cultural identity, namely globalisation and cultural bricolage. Modern diasporic identity is constructed and articulated through means of globalisation. The growth of modern communication and transportation networks such as TV channels, video tapes, newspapers, internet facilities and charter flights has facilitated and increased the pace of communication between Germany and Turkey. In consonance with this, the diaspora has infiltrated the homeland, and the homeland infiltrated the diaspora. Transnational connections with homeland, other members of diaspora in various geographies, and/or with a world-political force (such as Islam) break the binary relation of minority conamunities with majority societies as well as strengthening their claims against an oppressive national hegemony. Modem means of globalisation have not only brought the homeland closer to the diaspora, but also erased the distance between the diasporic subject and the external world. Modern networks of globalisation have provided Berlin-Turkish youth with an opportunity to incorporate themselves into different global cultural streams such as hip-hop culture. In the context of Berlin-Turkish hip-hop youth, what emerged out of these transnational links is a syncretic form of minority youth culture, or 'third culture'. This 'third culture' is a bricolage in which elements from different cultural traditions, sources and social discourses are continuously intermingled with and juxtaposed to each other. This work also investigates the transformation of political participation strategies which Turkish migrants in Berlin have developed since the beginning of the migratory process in 1961. So far, there have been two principal strategies, namely a migrant strategy and a minor4y strategy. Both strategies developed along ethnic lines partly due to the exciusionist incorporation regimes of the Federal Republic of Germany vis-â-vis' migrants. Yet, recently diasporic consciousness seems to be replacing, or at least, supplementing the migrant and minority strategies. The work concludes that the politics of diaspora is grounded on different antithetical forces such as past/present, here/there, 'tradition'/'translation' and local/global. In this sense, modern diasporic identity conveys an identity which is not a fixed, essentialist and authorised totality, but which is always in a constant process of change and transformation.