This dissertation comments on the current period of intense social change in the former Soviet Union by charting processes of elite production at a business school in Riga, Latvia. It is concerned with an ethnically diverse group of students from the Baltic states who attend a Swedish institution established to accelerate the transition. I suggest that rather than producing 'catalysts of change' the business school represents a foreign-direct-investment into human capital. The thesis tackles the transnational complexities of the organisation by combining ethnographic description with an analysis of the historical and ideological shifts in international relations and a review of the anthropological literature on socialism. The thesis also responds to the lack of anthropological research on elites by presenting the first ethnographic study of a business school. It investigates elite schooling practices and parameters through an engagement with the debates on reproduction in education. In Riga an off-the-peg curriculum sidelines issues specifically concerned with the Baltic context; instead of addressing local problems students are increasingly drawn towards transnational corporations. During their attendance they partially develop their own agenda, which is a finding that questions prevalent assumptions about the docility of students in elite education. Other key factors of the students' transformation are language, image, style, school space and consumption. Their collective grooming project forms an important part of the esprit de corps at the school. Additionally, the thesis highlights the establishment of multiethnic networks on the basis of shared interests, thus challenging one-dimensional reports of nationalism in the region. Caught between the post-Soviet context and a forceful Swedish vision of change students experience upward mobility along with problematic negotiations of ongoing circumstances. Intended as a contribution to anthropological studies of post-socialism the thesis explains how the business school generates graduates who are willing and desirable recruits for the capitalist expansion.

The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the relationship between the event of post-communism and the democratic nature of the political. Three main tendencies of post-communist condition are analyzed: the relationship between post-communism and historicism; the interaction between post-communism, liberalism and postmodernism; the relationship between unitarism and pluralism. The fundamental assumption of the analysis is the significance of post-foundational political thought for the understanding of post-communism. Post-communism is analyzed not as linear liberal modernization, but as democratic transformation. Post-communism is the hybrid condition that includes the alter egos of communism, liberalism and postmodernism. Post-communism assimilates the potential alter egos of liberalism and postmodernism and therefore transforms the distinction of friend/enemy to the criterion of friend/friend, which ignores the nature of the political. Condition of post-communism requires not the eradication of differencies, but self-reflection of the differential nature of the political. The task of new democracy of post-communism is to articulate the possibility of democratic pluralistic politics under post-totalitarian conditions. However, post-communism is reluctant to accept the dimension of post-totalitarianism and tries to converge with universal post-liberalism. Dominating liberal pluralism assimilates democratic pluralism which becomes democratic procedural minimalism. / Disertacijos tikslas yra išnagrinėti sąveikas tarp postkomunizmo įvykio prigimties ir demokratinės politiškumo prigimties. Darbe yra nagrinėjamos trejopos sąveikos: postkomunizmo ir istorizmo santykis; postkomunizmo, liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo santykis; vienovės ir pliuralumo santykis. Specifinei postkomunizmo būklės analizei taikomos postfundacionalizmo filosofijos idėjos. Postkomunizmas nagrinėjamas ne pabrėžiant liberalios modernizacijos turinį (kaip tranzitologinėse koncepcijose), bet analizuojant demokratinės transformacijos sąlygas ir galimybes. Postkomunizmo tapatybė formuojasi kaip hibridinis trijų sudedamųjų dalių – komunizmo, liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo – darinys. Liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo alter ego yra asimiliuojami universalistinėje draugo/draugo asociacijoje, kuri pakeičia išorinę draugo/priešo skirtį, nurodančią politiškumo prigimtį. Diferencinės politikos kilmės problema yra nauja, aktuali ir tęstinė postkomunizmo būklės problema. Postkomunizmas linkęs pamiršti posttotalitarizmo komponentą (jeigu išeinama iš komunizmo, tai išeinama ir iš totalitarizmo) ir siekia prisišlieti prie postliberalizmo tendencijų. Demokratinio pliuralizmo idėją asimiliuoja dominuojanti liberalios pliuralizacijos tendencija.

Disertacijos tikslas yra išnagrinėti sąveikas tarp postkomunizmo įvykio prigimties ir demokratinės politiškumo prigimties. Darbe yra nagrinėjamos trejopos sąveikos: postkomunizmo ir istorizmo santykis; postkomunizmo, liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo santykis; vienovės ir pliuralumo santykis. Specifinei postkomunizmo būklės analizei taikomos postfundacionalizmo filosofijos idėjos. Postkomunizmas nagrinėjamas ne pabrėžiant liberalios modernizacijos turinį (kaip tranzitologinėse koncepcijose), bet analizuojant demokratinės transformacijos sąlygas ir galimybes. Postkomunizmo tapatybė formuojasi kaip hibridinis trijų sudedamųjų dalių – komunizmo, liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo – darinys. Liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo alter ego yra asimiliuojami universalistinėje draugo/draugo asociacijoje, kuri pakeičia išorinę draugo/priešo skirtį, nurodančią politiškumo prigimtį. Diferencinės politikos kilmės problema yra nauja, aktuali ir tęstinė postkomunizmo būklės problema. Postkomunizmas linkęs pamiršti posttotalitarizmo komponentą (jeigu išeinama iš komunizmo, tai išeinama ir iš totalitarizmo) ir siekia prisišlieti prie postliberalizmo tendencijų. Demokratinio pliuralizmo idėją asimiliuoja dominuojanti liberalios pliuralizacijos tendencija. / The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the relationship between the event of post-communism and the democratic nature of the political. Three main tendencies of post-communist condition are analyzed: the relationship between post-communism and historicism; the interaction between post-communism, liberalism and postmodernism; the relationship between unitarism and pluralism. The fundamental assumption of the analysis is the significance of post-foundational political thought for the understanding of post-communism. Post-communism is analyzed not as linear liberal modernization, but as democratic transformation. Post-communism is the hybrid condition that includes the alter egos of communism, liberalism and postmodernism. Post-communism assimilates the potential alter egos of liberalism and postmodernism and therefore transforms the distinction of friend/enemy to the criterion of friend/friend, which ignores the nature of the political. Condition of post-communism requires not the eradication of differencies, but self-reflection of the differential nature of the political. The task of new democracy of post-communism is to articulate the possibility of democratic pluralistic politics under post-totalitarian conditions. However, post-communism is reluctant to accept the dimension of post-totalitarianism and tries to converge with universal post-liberalism. Dominating liberal pluralism assimilates democratic pluralism which becomes democratic procedural minimalism.

This paper is a discussion and analysis of Red Scare propaganda from two different time periods: 1918-1921 and the 1940-50’s. Six examples of propaganda have been chosen and analyzed both visually and rhetorically. The paper also contains a discussion of the historical context and times surrounding the images, helping to place the texts within a proper framework for discussion. The six images are analyzed through Aristotle’s traditional rhetorical devices – ethos, pathos, and logos. Seven logical fallacies and drawn from this discussion of rhetoric and applied to the images as well. The images are visually analyzed in terms of stereotypes they uphold as well as the American ideology of “Americanism” that they allegedly support.

<p>According to conventional wisdom, the period of intense antiradicalism that followed World War II effectively drove all radical activity underground by the early 1950s, severing the intergenerational connection between the "Old Left" of the Great Depression era and the "New Left" of the 1960s. Building a Better World revises this narrative by examining how radical activists in New York City carved out space for young people's participation in leftwing political culture between 1945 and 1965. Contrary to most studies of the postwar Red Scare that focus on the Left's decline, this study tells a story of survival. Despite concerted efforts by social critics and governmental officials to curtail radicals' political influence among the young, radicals maintained a surprisingly robust radical social world centered in summer camps, private schools, youth groups, cultural organizations, union halls, and homes throughout New York City and its environs. In these spaces, youth continued to absorb a radical worldview that celebrated the labor movement, decolonization struggles, and African Americans' quest for freedom, while forwarding a biting critique of American capitalism. This process of intergenerational transmission would not have been possible without access to social space and an ever-evolving interpretation of radical values responsive to changes in political culture and demographics. Building a Better World relies on extensive archival research, print material, visual sources, and original oral histories to document this hidden history. In so doing, the dissertation significantly revises our understanding of the American Left, the history of American childhood, spatial change in New York City, and the evolution of political, ethnic, and racial identities in modern American history.</p> / Dissertation

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This thesis examines the development of the Yugoslav Communists' approach towards the Catholic Church during the period of their takeover and consolidation of power from the outbreak of war in April 1941 until late 1946. In recent years, a comprehensive reappraisal of the Communist takeover has been going on in the countries of former Yugoslavia, and this work draws on this new scholarship, as well as on hitherto unused archival material. It examines the development of the Communists' popular front line during the war, according to which the Communist-dominated Partisan movement sought to appeal to non-communists, including Catholics, to join them in ousting the occupier. As such, this policy meant downplaying the Communists' revolutionary programme, which they never actually gave up. The thesis examines in detail the application of the popular front policy among the Catholic Croats of Croatia and Bosnia, and among the Slovenes. It describes how the Communists avoided actions or pronouncements that would have offended the Church, attempted to have cordial relations with the Church hierarchy and encouraged the active participation of Catholic clergy and prominent lay people in the movement. The prime purpose of this was to reassure the Catholic population that they had nothing to fear from a Communist takeover. However, the hostility between the two sides was not overcome, as revealed in the violence of the Communists towards many of the clergy during the period immediately before and after their takeover. Following this, the Communists' implementation of their revolutionary programme brought them into direct conflict with the interests of the Church, especially in their curtailing of the role of the Church in education and in their confiscation of Church property. Relations quickly degenerated into open confrontation, as the Church could not accept the limited role in society which the Communists were prepared to grant it.

This thesis is a contribution towards negotiating a way through the terrain of contemporary Marxist theory in the conditions of late capitalism. A Marxism which is responsive to the prevailing conditions and open to reconfiguration. I have chosen to concentrate on the works of Bhaskar, Jameson and Laclau because they all have attempted to develop their own projects rather than reiterate an orthodox Marxist line. I begin the thesis through an examination of the contribution of Althusser. Althusser's theoretical work sets up the conceptual parameters of the thesis, and offers a way into negotiating a path beyond the Marxism/post-Marxism divide. In the first chapter I demonstrate the ongoing influence of Althusser on all three of the theorists in question. This inevitably has to include a historical contextualisation and a restaging of the events that gave rise to Althusser's Marxism. Althusser had an enormous impact on Marxist theory, and the rapid decline of structural Marxism left a void which has yet to be dealt with adequately. Althusser has thus provided the possibility of connecting all three thinkers and at the same time has enabled an overview of the distinctive approaches of them. A critical evaluation of Bhaskar, Jameson and Laclau will be the theme of chapters two, three and four. The approach I will take will be to argue that each of the protagonists offers something different for a reconfigured Marxism. I will orientate the chapters on Bhaskar, Jameson and Laclau around the following critical considerations: What does Marxism in the conditions of postmodernity entail? If one takes seriously the criticisms posed by postist thought, then what remains distinctively Marxist after this process? The issue of class has been central to any Marxist analysis, but is it possible to articulate a class transformative project alongside the new social movements? How have Bhaskar, Jameson and Laclau responded to these issues and others relating to contemporary Marxism? It is in trying to answer these questions as applied to these three theorists, that the originality of the thesis lies.

This thesis is the first full-length study of the fiction-of Kathy Acker, a radical and transgressive American female writer (1947-1997). The study maps the development of Acker's fiction by focusing on the political dimension of her aesthetic strategies. It explores the politics of plagiarism and appropriation; the subversive representation of gender and sexual politics; and the anarchistic impulse of Acker's work. The main theoretical and political approaches employed are: feminist theory, poststructuralism, abjection and anarchism. The study begins with an introduction to Acker's life, since there is a significant if problematic autobiographical impulse in her writing, and her socio-cultural context. It proceeds to a detailed critical exploration of work published between 1968 and 1986, drawing attention to Acker's affinities with a poststructuralist project. Acker's strategies of juxtaposition, paradox, and contradiction, alongside her fragmented, non-linear, digressive narratives, are read as a form of social critique. Her use and abuse of the white, male, Euro-centric canon is examined in light of the construction of female sexuality, and Acker's focus on phallocentric language as a source of subjugation is also considered. The study then argues for and interrogates Acker's move towards a more affirmative narrative strategy before looking in detail at her fiction of the 1990s - fiction which, until now, has received slight attention. Through close readings of her later novels, the study illustrates how Julia Kristeva's concept of the abject is fruitful for an examination of Acker's work, and examines cross-cultural intertextuality (from the horror film to the avant-garde). It also relates the trope of piracy that is present in Acker's later works to the political ideology of anarchism. The conclusion to the thesis argues that Acker's strength lies in her uncompromising belief in the avant-garde, and details her sustained attempt to make critically incisive political art.

This essay examines two communist parties in Sweden; The Communist Party (Kommunistiska partiet [KP]) and Sweden's Communist party (Sveriges kommunistiska parti [SKP]). Furthermore, this essay is a comparative study where the two parties' political agendas are compared. The method with which the study was conducted is a quantitative content analysis, where the frequencies of usage pertaining to certain words and expressions have been measured. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx has also been compared to these two parties' political agendas concerning words and expressions. This was done in order to determine which of the examined parties stands closer to the aforementioned original document from an ideological perspective. The result reveals which differences that were detected.