This thesis attempts to stress the decisiveness of armed force for the capitalist hold of state power and that only if a multi-level analytical framework is adopted a fuller account of the reality can be given with reference to the capitalist hold of state power. After laying the methodological and theoretical grounds for a multi-level analysis along with the privilege of armed force as the factor enabling the state power, it concretizes the multi-level analytical framework in the context of Turkey. It drives the attention to the co-existence of micro and macro level factors influential over state practices. The mafia forces are also proposed to be integrated to the analysis of the capitalist state on account of the considerable economic and armed means they hold. The Weberian approach describing the state in terms of its monopoly of legitimate use of force is proposed to be replaced by an alternative one not holding the consent of the inhabitants as an unconditional necessity for the presence of the state. The class struggle process is held to take place at a site embracing the interplay of associative and communal relationships in a micro-macro range. The routes of tendential multiplicity and totality are attempted to be explored at least partially. Also the importance of strategy and tactics are stressed and some threats waiting the forces longing for a world without exploitation and domination are underlined.

In the years after the Liberal Reforms of the 1870s, the capitalization of coffee production and buttressing of coercive labour regimes in rural Guatemala brought huge amounts of surplus capital to Guatemala City. Individual families—either invested in land or export houses—and the state used this newfound wealth to transform and beautify the capital, effectively inaugurating the modern era in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This dissertation considers the urban experience of modernity in Guatemala City since the 1870s. It argues that until the 1920s and 1930s, modernity in the city was primarily influenced by aesthetic modernism in the form of shopping arcades and department stores with their commodities, sites of bourgeois pleasure and pomp such as the hippodrome and Temple to Minerva, society dances, expositions, and fairs. After this point, the social fallout of economic modernization increasingly defined the experience of urban modernity in Guatemala City. Capitalist development altered the social relations of production in the countryside, precipitating massive urbanization that characterized urban life in the second half of the twentieth century. My analysis helps to account for shifting perceptions of Guatemala City; regarded during the fin-de-siècle as the “Paris of Central America”—owing to its wide boulevards, dawning consumer culture, and cosmopolitan nature—the capital today is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the Americas. I argue that, since the Liberal Reforms, urban Guatemalans learned to see, act, and think as modern subjects. The idea of the “optics of modernity” is introduced to understand epistemological shifts in perception associated with technological, scientific, religious, social, economic, and cultural changes. The optics of modernity denote both the markers of modernity (such as trains, department stores, and new social types like dandies) and new subject positions that altered the experience of the modern world. With these optics of modernity, I argue that urban Guatemalans learned to acclimatize themselves to living in a modern city. The culture of modernity during the Guatemalan Belle Époque (roughly from 1892 until 1917) is of particular interest. This dissertation proposes that the economic expansion of the period was frequently punctuated by recessions and depressions as the prices of export agricultural commodities dropped and rebounded on global markets. These economic crises constrained the bourgeoisie’s visions of liberal utopia. A unique cultural phenomenon known as the cultura de esperar (the culture of expecting, hoping, and waiting) is introduced in this work to describe the epistemological predicaments that arose when the hopes and expectations of modernity were stifled by economic gluts. The analysis explores a wide variety of topics from nineteenth-century séance culture, bull fighting in cinema, the modernist avant-garde, and the dawning of consumer culture to the contrast between verticality in urban architecture and the expansion of urban slums.

This thesis studies the structural transformation of public musical life in Stockholm during the period 1840–1890, with focus primarily on the classical musical sphere. The study is based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of a number of different sources such as newspapers, music magazines, offprints, and other archival material. Using Jürgen Habermas’s theory of structural transformation of the public sphere as a starting point, the thesis aims to elucidate the processes within the structural transformation of Stockholm’s public musical life. In particular, this study examines processes of institutionalisation and professionalisation within four main areas of public musical life: the music press market, concert life, performers, and audiences. The actions of individuals and institutions are also studied in order to highlight the priorities and proclivities underlying the identified changes to public musical life. The period in question saw the transition of concert life from representational culture to the bourgeois public sphere, as well as the gradual division between ‘classical’ and ‘popular’ musical spheres. The study shows that public musical life emerged and expanded within the bourgeois public sphere. Therefore, the ideas and demands of the bourgeoisie were crucial to structural transformation of Stockholm’s public musical life. The old Royal institutions still constituted the core of the public musical life but were adapted to the new bourgeois society. The process of institutionalisation within the musical life was characterized by organisational functions, but also by social institutionalisation of practices within the four main areas mentioned above. The bourgeois ideas of musical Bildung played a significant role in the processes of institutionalisation and professionalization, as it illuminates the priorities and proclivities underlying this process. Several aspects of this development are related to influences from early nineteenth-century musical idealism. The structural transformation of public musical life in Stockholm during the period 1840–1890 laid the foundation for the further developments in the 20th century, and its impact is in some respects evident still today.

<p>My dissertation, "The People's Republic of Capitalism: The Making of the New Middle Class in Post-Socialist China, 1978-Present" draws on a range of visual cultural forms - cinema, documentary, and fashion - to track the cultural dimension of the emergence of the new middle class subject in China's encounter with global capitalism. Through cultural studies methodologies and critical theoretical practices, I explore the massive reorganization of national subjectivity that has accompanied the economic reforms since 1978. How, I ask, has the middle class replaced the proletariat as the dominant subject of Chinese history? What are the competing social forces that contribute to the making of the new middle class subject, and how do they operate? By considering these questions in terms of the cultural cultivation of new sensibilities as much as identities, I trace China's changing social formations through the realm of cultural productions. This project is organized into three parts, each of which attends to a particular constellation of middle class subjectivities and ideologies. In Part I (Introduction and Chapter 1), I explore how the Chinese middle class subject is shaped by historical, political-economic, and cultural forces. I show that the new social actor is structurally dependent on the national and transnational bourgeoisie and the post-socialist party-state. In Part II (Chapters 2-5), I focus on the relationship among fashion, media, and Chinese consumer culture in the socialist and post-socialist eras. By engaging with films such as Xie Tieli's Never Forget (1964), Huang Zumo's Romance on Lushan (1980), Qi Xingjia's Red Dress is in Fashion (1984), and Jia Zhangke's The World (2004) and Useless (2007), I suggest that the representation of fashion and consumption in Chinese cinema, documentary, and new media is a privileged site for deciphering otherwise imperceptible meanings of class, ideology, and history in the formation of the Chinese middle class subject. In Part III (Chapter 6), I attend to the repressed underside of Chinese consumer culture: rubbish. This project reorients our understanding of socialist and post-socialist China, seeing them as underpinned by the contradictions emblematized in the Chinese middle class.</p> / Dissertation

Durante la I Guerra Mundial Cuba exporta azúcar a precios altos e importa gran cantidad de bienes materiales, servicios y prácticas. Para la élite de la república poscolonial, esta coyuntura significa la oportunidad de acelerar la realización de la utopía de bienestar y confort presente en las expectativas del cambio de siglo y dominación. La Independencia debía conducir a la civilización, a los tiempos modernos, a una redefinición de la identidad. La república -liberación de las fuerzas productivas- pareció el marco o medio adecuado para alcanzar la nueva meta. Numerosos cambios acontecieron antes de 1920, teniendo La Habana como único escenario. Pero la ruta oligárquica no condujo a la modernidad, sino a la construcción de un complejo simulacro moderno. Un espacio hedonista marcado por un tiempo circular, nuevas tensiones y la acumulación de una peligrosa melancolía revolucionaria. Este desenlace sin conclusión configura los laberintos de la cultura insular del siglo XX. / During the World War I Cuba exports sugar at high prices and imports large quantities of material goods, services and practices. For the post-colonial elite, this situation means the opportunity to accelerate the utopia of well-being and comfort present in the expectations of what the new century and change in domination would bring about. Independence should lead to civilization, to modern times, to a redefinition of identity. The republic-liberation of a productive forces-seemed to provide the appropiated framework to achieve the new goal. Numerous changes occurred before 1920, taking Havana as the sole scenario. But the oligarchic path led not to modernity, but the construction of a complex appereance of modernity: a hedonistic space marked by circular time, new tensions, and the rising of a dangerous revolutionary melancholy. The inconclusive outcome shapes the intrincate labyrinths of the insular culture of the twentieth century.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University. / Vita. "The chapters printed here form the introduction and conclusion of a dissertation presented to the Board of university studies of the Johns Hopkins university for the degree of doctor of philosophy. The entire dissertation has been found too bulky to print at present."--Pref.

Texte remanié de: Th. dott.--Storia urbana e rurala--Perugia, 1994. Titre de soutenance : Notabili e ceti dirigenti a Siena in età napoleonica (1808-1814). / Bibliogr. p. 279-300. Index.

Ce travail étudie la culture matérielle privée de la bourgeoisie parisienne au XIXe siècle. Il s’attache à saisir les transformations de nature et d’identité des objets et des formes de consommation pour retrouver les usages sociaux et culturels des choses, dans une ville qui connaît de profondes mutations commerciales et urbaines. Mobilisant archives privées et commerciales, il inscrit la culture matérielle dans un cadre social et dans l’espace urbain. Ce travail tente de comprendre comment se redéfinit la sphère domestique dans l’espace urbain nouveau et en appartement et le rôle des techniques du quotidien dans la scénographie du privé et l’appréhension de soi. Cette thèse envisage aussi le monde matériel comme un ensemble de signes et de récits élaborés par les marchands et les consommateurs, alors que la nature et la hiérarchie des objets et des matières sont bouleversées par l’industrialisation. Ce travail cherche à élucider les phénomènes d’imitation et de distinction alors que s’accroît la mobilité sociale ainsi que la production collective des modes en analysant les scènes urbaines où elles se donnent à voir, les figures du goût qui émergent et les formes nouvelles de publicités qui se déploient dans la ville. Au final, ce travail est un essai sur les manières dont un groupe social investit et produit le théâtre des objets pour élaborer une identité sociale et culturelle. / The study analyses the ways by which a social group consumed and produced a world of goods in order to shape its own social and cultural identity. With a view to reconstruct the social and cultural uses of things in a city which underwent deep commercial and spatial changes, the thesis identifies the nature and forms of the Parisian bourgeoisie’s consumption, through private and business archives. It studies how the bourgeois home was redefined in flat and in the growing city and how daily technology forged the bourgeoise’s private scenography and self-awareness. It studies then the material culture of 19th century Parisian bourgeoisie, understood as a set of signs and narratives designed by dealers and consumers, whilst industrialisation radically transformed the nature and hierarchy of materials and commodities. Finally, this work sheds light on phenomenons of imitation and distinction as social mobility increased and analyses how fashion trends came to being onto specific urban scenes, through the mediating role of taste legislators and the means of new forms of urban advertising.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T17:55:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ivanor_Mann_de_Souza.pdf: 1127551 bytes, checksum: bbf35c0facd31db117652f40f586228c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-08-30 / In order to problematize the State acting in Toledo, it is taken as base an initial discussion about its origin and its integration into the civil society; it intends to identify the State into the social relationships, going beyond the simple presentation defended by the theoretical liberalists. This research, based on the historical materialism, especially in the gramscian conception of State, aims to understand the civil society of Toledo and the relationships that it establishes in the State configuration with the municipality, which is disputed by the bourgeoisie in the class struggle, in order to defend their interests. This research discuss about the State in Toledo, taking as base literature sources, bills approved by City Council, archives from the Historical Museum of Toledo and it is, essentially, based on the analyses of A Voz do Oeste newspaper trajectory, discussing how it became a private apparatus from the hegemony of some of the local bourgeoisie in order to perform their project within the municipal administration. To clarify how the newspaper was used to defend the interests of its represents, it is noticed its relationship with the two municipal managements of the mayors Avelino Campagnolo (1964-1969) and Egon Pudell (1969-1970), until the year the journal is extinct. By the fact the two mayors managed the city one after the other, it is possible to understand the posture of the newspaper regarding the two municipal governments. Although both mayors defended the bourgeoisie groups, it is possible to realize that even though the bourgeoisie, in the class struggle, is involved cohesively and unified with the objective of the maintenance of the exploitation of the working class, the different fractions that constitute the bourgeoisie have cracks and these can be notice on how the newspaper dealt with the two administrations and in its intervention in the campaign for the mayor electoral dispute in Toledo in 1968, when burghers groups, that expressed themselves through the newspaper, acted effectively to achieve their goals. Therefore, this work builds up a discussion on the organizational forms constituted by these groups, in particular through the establishment and maintenance of the A Voz do Oeste newspaper, aiming its hegemony statement / Ao problematizar o Estado atuante em Toledo, partimos de uma discussão inicial sobre sua origem e sua inserção na sociedade civil; buscando identificar o Estado inserido nas relações sociais, indo além da apresentação simplória defendida pelos teóricos do liberalismo. A pesquisa, fundamentada no materialismo histórico, em especial na concepção gramsciana de Estado, tem como objetivo a compreensão da sociedade civil toledense e as relações que esta estabelece na configuração do Estado no município, que é disputado pela burguesia na luta de classes, para defender os seus interesses. A pesquisa trabalha o Estado em Toledo a partir das fontes literárias, dos projetos de Lei aprovados pela Câmara de Vereadores, de arquivos do Museu Histórico de Toledo e, principalmente, fundamenta-se na análise da trajetória do jornal A Voz do Oeste , discutindo a forma como ele se constituiu em um aparelho privado de hegemonia de frações da burguesia local para colocar em prática seu projeto político no âmbito da administração municipal. Para esclarecer como o jornal atuou na defesa de interesses de seus representados, abordamos sua relação com as duas gestões municipais dos prefeitos Avelino Campagnolo (1964 - 1969) e Egon Pudell (1969 - 1970), até o ano em que o jornal foi extinto. Pelo fato das duas gestões serem uma na sequência da outra, é possível compreender a postura do jornal em relação aos dois governos municipais. Embora ambos defendessem interesses de grupos burgueses, é possível perceber que, embora na luta de classes a burguesia intervenha de forma coesa e unificada, visando à manutenção da exploração sobre a classe trabalhadora; as diferentes frações que constituem a burguesia tem fissuras e estas puderam ser percebidas na forma como o jornal se relacionou com as duas administrações e em sua intervenção na disputa da campanha eleitoral para prefeito em Toledo em 1968, quando os grupos burgueses que se expressam através dele agiram efetivamente para atingir os seus objetivos. Assim, o trabalho desenvolve uma discussão sobre as formas organizativas criadas por estes grupos, em especial através da constituição e manutenção do jornal A Voz do Oeste , visando sua afirmação hegemônica

Este estudo contribui para a compreensão da formação da fração industrial da burguesia de São Paulo. Procuramos examinar a atuação da patronal da indústria a partir dos conflitos e negociações ocorridos desde este acontecimento, buscando apreender a experiência de coesão e organização do empresariado industrial de São Paulo. Nossa hipótese principal é de que, tal como o operariado, a patronal industrial também passou a se organizar e se mobilizar de forma mais consciente e programática. O que se pode inferir na análise de sua atuação nas greves gerais de 1919 e 1920. Em ambas as greves, posteriores a 1917, notamos uma atuação coesa no processo de negociação, com destaque para a forma organizacional das entidades patronais, tais como o Centro Industrial de Fiação e Tecelagem de São Paulo e a Associação Paulista das Indústrias Mecânicas e Metalúrgicas. / This study contributes to the compreehension of the establishing of the industrial fraction of the bourgeosie of Sao Paulo. We seek to examine the Sao Paulo industry employers actions from conflicts and negotiations that have occured since this event, trying to understand their experience of organization and cohesiveness. Our main hypothesis is that, as well as the working class, the industrial employers also began to organize and mobilize themselves in a more consciously and programmatically way. What can be inferred from the analysis of their action in the general strikes of 1919 and 1920. In both strikes, subsequent to 1917, we observed a cohesive representation in the negotiation process, highlighting the organizational form of the employers, such as the Spinning and Weaving Industrial Center of Sao Paulo and the Metallurgical and Mechanical Industry Association of Sao Paulo.