<p>Croatia became an independent country 1991 and has since then strived to reach a democracy level, which can lead to membership of the European Union. The purpose of this essay is on the basis of consolidate democratic perspective to illustrate Croatia’s democratic development.</p><p>In order to fulfil the aim, I have applied a qualitative text analysis technique. Through analysis of books and documents, data was collected to accommodate a valid result. I have used consolidated democracy, with its five areas (political, civil, economic, legal and bureaucratic), as my theoretical framework to the data, to provide answers and develop an analysis.</p><p>The conclusions show that the consolidate democracy in Croatia has developed a lot since the independence, and Croatia is on its good way to turn into a democratic state like other West-European countries. Croatia has developed and is still developing their political, civil, economic, legal and bureaucratic areas. A good sign of their democratic development is that Croatia received status as a candidate country in June 2005 for European Union, which shows that Croatia is on the way to complete its transition to consolidated democracy.</p>

<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Authors: Sara Haugbak & Jenny Thomsen</p><p>Title: Towards Equality – Oppressed Non-White Women in Cape Town, South Africa</p><p>Subject: Sociology</p><p>Level: Undergraduate thesis, D-level, 10 p.</p><p>Department: School of Social Science</p><p>Tutor: Svante Lundberg</p><p>Supervisor: Anders Nilsson</p><p>Prior to the first democratic election in 1994, South Africa experienced the racist and sexist legislation of apartheid. The democratisation was surrounded by violent struggles amongst the non-white population and the issue regarding gender had to step aside in favour of the struggle against racial discrimination.</p><p>This study focuses on how the lives of the underprivileged non-white women in Cape Town are affected by the post-apartheid changes. This area will be divided in to four more specific topics: civil society, human rights, collaboration between civil society and the Government and power structures that affect the development and lives of the women.</p><p>Our methodology is based on interviews with women with insight in the problem area, participant observation, and secondary material constituted by legal sources, reports and statistics.</p><p>The main findings can be summarised with mentioning that the deprivation are based upon five different dimensions: poverty, isolation, physical weakness, vulnerability and powerlessness. They are all closely linked to violations of human rights, and in order to create a complete picture power is of great significance. There are three different views on power, all of which are surrounded by a complexity of problems. This can be wrapped up in the statement that the society as a whole is permeated by underlying power structures that makes the non-white women of South Africa doubly exposed.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Université Laval, 1998. / Text in English. Includes bibliographical references.

Examensarbete.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2008.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Social Anthropology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-150). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ67739.

How does the international system move from an anarchic system driven by power to a global community driven by the needs/wants of the community at large? Jürgen Habermas utilizes the tenets of his Communicative Action Theory to underline the importance of communicatively based repertoire in the international system between and among states and non-state actors and the citizens themselves. How does arguing and reasoning among states and international institutions bring together legitimization and order? My research aims to analyze the movement of the international system from anarchy towards a global civil society. In doing so, I will examine Communicative Action Theory in International Relations, in particular the development of legitimization processes in international politics, the role of state sovereignty and its effect on the legitimization process of non-state actors. I argue that underdeveloped legitimization processes at the international level consist of fragile consensus building mechanisms that explain why disagreement can and often does lead to violence. However, I also contend that the international system is moving toward a more developed global civil society.

As researchers provide compelling evidence pointing to climate change, governments and civil society actors are getting stimulated to act and reverse the negative impacts of extreme climate change. The impact of climate change on Kenya is profound and staggering. It is estimated that Kenya’s landmass is 582,350 km2, of which only 17% is arable, with 83% consisting of semi-arid and arid land. Climate change and human activities are resulting in desertification and increasing total semi-arid and arid land. Researchers further estimate that 17% of Mombasa or 4600 hectares of the region’s land area will be submerged as a result of sea-level rise. This situation demands policy actions to combat the situation. As developing countries wade into combating climate change, the government of Kenya is implementing far reaching polices to fight climate change including its 2006 water quality regulation and 2009 regulation of wetlands, riverbanks, lakeshore and sea management regulations of 2009. In addition, development partners such as the UNDP and civil society actors working on climate change have played a critical role complementing government policy actions. Working through the Africa’s Adaptation Programme (AAP), civil society organizations (CSOs) are participating in agenda setting, and increasing awareness that promote climate change adaptation through civic engagement. Civic engagement serves as an important tool for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote a more effective response to the hazardous effects of extreme climate change. Despite this, researchers and policy analyst argue that civil societies work within the environmental sector is not based on rigorous research, their actions are uncoordinated, and outcomes are poorly communicated. As a focal point, this report examined how CSOs organize around key policy issues and work through the AAP to set the agenda and influence climate change policymaking in Kenya. The study is based largely on an evaluation of secondary data sources including websites, Programme documents and academic articles. I also benefited from a summer internship at UNDP offices in Nairobi in 2010. The study explored how AAP is professionalizing and how that increases its leverage and strengthens NGOs to actively participate in policy influencing. The study summarizes scattered pieces of information into one report to enhance the AAP’s database building efforts. Finally, this serves as resource for CSOs policy engagement in Kenya and beyond. Overall, the report reveals that the AAP is bridging ties between CSOs working within the climate change sector by bringing them under one umbrella. This social bonding behavior serves as social capital to influence policy. However to increase leverage for effective policy engagement, the AAP needs to incrementally apply rigorous evidenced based research to generate more compelling information that transforms policies. It further suggests commercializing clean energy technologies by charging affordable rates for deploying such infrastructure to households. Finally, using policy entrepreneurs can dramatically improve policy advocacy in Kenya. / text

dissertation examines the role of civil society actors in the social service sectors of two cities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Although existing scholarship addresses the nature of state-society relations in collapsed states, less is known about how local institutions act to maintain "state" structures even when the state is absent. My project contributes to this literature by explaining why, in a failed state, some civil society organizations (CSO's) are more successful at providing social services than others. I hypothesize that variations in internal organizational cohesion account for these differences. Using an historical institutional approach, I examine the history, level of engagement with the state, ethnic composition, and level of international support of various CSO's in the eastern D.R. Congo as indicators of a CSO's level of organizational cohesion. I then compare fifteen structural indicators to determine each CSO's level of success in organizing social services, and conclude that CSO's with higher levels of internal organizational cohesion are more likely to successfully organize health and education structures in situations of state collapse. In addition, the portion of the study that addresses ethnic fragmentation in CSO's suggests that certain institutional arrangements can help local groups to overcome the well-documented barriers to inter-ethnic cooperation in public goods provision. / text

In the last fifteen years, conflict resolution, a collaborative, problem-solving approach to social conflicts, was introduced to new democracies in an attempt to develop civil society's capacity for conflict management (Mayer, 2000). Conflict resolution provides people with an opportunity to advocate effectively for their own interests in a non-violent, constructive manner through systematic educational efforts, skills trainings, dialogue initiatives, and mediation practices (Mayer, 2000). It empowers people to address, manage, and transform difficulties and antagonism into a source of positive social change and, thus, change people's negative psychological responses to conflicts (Bush & Folger, 1994). In this view, conflict resolution in new democracies' civil society provides citizens as well NGO practitioners with the skills and opportunities to practice how to express and resolve differences in a safe and constructive environment (Shonholtz, 1997). In an effort to provide additional information about civil society's conflict resolution practices and their affect in new democracies, this dissertation examines the existing efforts of South Korean civil society organisations to promote conflict resolution methodologies. Specifically, three organisations are examined to understand better South Korean civil society's response to PCR issues. Furthermore, by closely examining these three civil society organisations, this dissertation aims to explore what affect increased awareness and engagement in conflict resolution methodologies have on the democratic quality of civil society.