This dissertation is aimed at analyzing the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps&rsquo / (IRGC) relationship to politics, which evolved into different forms through the three decades of the revolution. Eventually the IRGC has become one of the most influential organizations with respect to Iranian politics. This situation has raised the following question / why and how has the IRGC become such an influential political actor in post-revolutionary Iranian politics? Considering different forms of the IRGC-politics relationship, this study also questioned the reasons that lay behind the shifts in that relationship. In order to answer these questions, this dissertation examined the relationship between the Revolutionary Guards and the political leadership in post-revolutionary Iran. It maintained that there are four variables that determined the IRGC-politics relationship, which are ideological position of the political leadership, power of the political leadership, ideological outlook of the Revolutionary Guards and corporateness of the Revolutionary Guards. In order to analyze forms of the IRGC-politics relationship and to explain shifts between these forms, it traced these variables through the post-revolutionary history of Iran, which was divided into four periods (i.e. transition, radical, thermidorian, and neo-radical periods) because of the changing political and revolutionary dynamics. It concluded that because corporateness of the IRGC reached into a high level whereas power of the political leadership was seriously weakened in the last two periods, the IRGC&rsquo / s clout significantly increased in Iranian politics. Congruence or incongruence between ideological values of the political leadership and of the IRGC, and their commitment to pursue those values determined the confrontationist or cooperative nature of the IRGC&rsquo / s relations with the political leadership.

Univ., Habil.-Schr.--Rostock, 2004.

This dissertation examines the ways in which military personnel interacted with religion during World War II. It argues that the challenges of wartime service provided the impetus and the opportunity to improvise religious practices, refine religious beliefs amid new challenges, and broaden religious understanding through interaction with those from other traditions. Methodologically, this dissertation moves beyond existing analyses that focus primarily on institutions and their representatives such as military chaplains. Instead, it explores first-person accounts left by men and women who were not part of the chaplain corps and analyzes ways in which non-chaplains engaged religion. The exigencies of war contributed to religious innovation as soldiers and sailors improvised religious practices. Lay leaders sometimes filled in to lead services as chaplains were often not available. Soldiers and sailors also modified individual religious practices such as diet, fasting, and prayer to fit the context of military service. The challenges of wartime service also led troops to refine previously held religious beliefs as well as to adopt new interpretations based on personal experiences. Soldiers and sailors often clung to whatever religious beliefs or practices they saw as potentially beneficial. Finally, religious mixing combined with social dislocation and stress to create an atmosphere in which troops questioned and reformulated their religious identities. As soldiers and sailors formed bonds with those from other traditions, it became more difficult to maintain previous assumptions rooted in suspicion and rumor about other faiths. Understanding how soldiers and sailors interacted with religion in World War II anticipates significant aspects of what many scholars have described as a religious revival in the two decades following the war. It suggests that many veterans returned to civilian life with more confidence in their own religious agency and with sharpened conceptions of what they considered religious essentials.

This thesis evaluates the effects of compulsory military service in South Korea on the political behavior of men from a public policy standpoint. I take an institutional point of view on conscription, in that conscription forces the military to accept individuals with minimal screening. Given the distinct set of values embodied by the military, I hypothesize that the military would need a powerful, comprehensive, and fast program of indoctrination to re-socialize civilians into military uniform, trustable enough to be entrusted with a gun or a confidential document. Based on the existence of such a program and related academic literature, I go on to look at how a military attitude has political implications, especially for the security-environment of the Korean peninsula. Given the ideological nature of the inter-Korean conflict, the South Korean military was biased against the liberals, as liberals were most likely to generate policies supporting conciliatory and cooperative measures towards North Korea, like the removal of U.S. forces from South Korea and the repeal of the National Security Laws that outlaw discussion of communism. For an empirical evaluation, I pose the hypothesis that this political bias would manifest itself in the male public via the military’s indoctrinative program. With data from the Korean General Social Survey, the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, and the South Korean General Election Panel Study, I have found that males respond acutely to specific security issues in favor or against according to the military’s point of view. However, the evidence for an overall bias on political parties generally was inconclusive. The uncertainty was mainly rooted in the fact that liberal parties have strategically avoided speaking out on specific policy issues during election.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, May, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Cover title. "December 2002." AD-A411 150. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-213). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (LL.M.)--George Washington University, 2003. / Title from title screen (viewed Sept. 9, 2005). "August 31, 2003." "ADA417077"--URL. Includes bibliographical references. System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Also issued in paper format.

Thesis (MMAS)--Command and General Staff College (CGSC), 2006. / AD-A452 186.

This paper examines the history of civil military relations in Mexico and Argentina in an attempt to understand why Mexico was able to subordinate its military following the fall of the Porfírian military regime, while Argentina experienced decades of military intervention into the civilian sphere. It argues that strong governmental and political institutions in Mexico were the key to subordinating the Mexican military to civilian control, while patterns of populist political movements in Argentina hampered the formation of strong governmental institutions that would have enabled the subordination of the military to civilian control.