Thesis (M.A.)--University of Notre Dame, 2010. / Thesis directed by Jackie Smith for the Department of Sociology. "April 2010." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-66).

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Sept. 16, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 220-232).

This thesis provides a critical cultural analysis of the discursive myths of salvation and conspiracy, using as a case study the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the transition period in Romania, from 1989 to 2007. The study offers an answer to the questions: how do NATO myths change? Why and with what discursive implications for the Romanian audience? The thesis uses a combination of methodological tools from three different disciplines - history, mythology, and rhetoric - with the intent of showing how the Romanians' public attitudes toward NATO change in four different political contexts: during the integration period until Romania's admission into the alliance, during the Kosovo war, after 9/11 events and during the installation of NATO troops on Romanian territory. This study demonstrates that NATO myths are effective operational strategies that offer Romanians a sense of identity in the critical period of transition. The thesis also explains how NATO, as a carrier of Western values, helps the democratization of the Romanian public sphere and the reconstruction of a national identity based on democratic principles. / by Daniela Popescu. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Das Wort was a literary journal published by German Communist writers and fellow-travelers exiled in Moscow from 1936 to 1939. It was to be a mouthpiece for German literature in exile and to promote the Popular Front policy, which sought to unite disparate elements in non-Fascist Europe in opposition to the Nazis. Das Wort, under the editorship of German Communist writers whose close association with the Soviet Union had been well established in the previous decade, tried to provide a forum for exiled writers of various political persuasions, but was unwavering in its positive portrayal of Stalin's Soviet Union and the policies of that country. As the level of hysteria grew with the successive purges and public show trials in the Soviet Union, the journal adopted an even more eulogistic and militant attitude: any criticism or expression of doubt about Soviet policy was equated with support for Fascism. Thus the ability of the journal to contribute to the formation of a true common front in Europe to oppose Fascism was compromised from the outset by its total support for the Soviet Union. The Popular Front policy foundered on this issue, and that portion of German literature in exile which was to form the first generation of East German literature was inextricably bound to the Soviet Union well before the German Democratic Republic came in to existence.

Democratic forms of government are either consolidating democratic institutions or unraveling into authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union. Among the possible causes of each success or failure to consolidate democracy is the character of civil society and its cultural proximity to long-standing, modern state-based, consolidated democracies of the West. What impact does Western or Westernized media have upon the indigenous civil societies of Eastern Europe, and is this impact sufficient to consolidate democracy among the states of the former Soviet Union? As case studies, Eastern Europe contains two states, Estonia and Russia, where democracy has either succeeded or failed alongside the presence of exogenous cultural influence in the form of Western or Westernized television broadcast media. To what extent does the presence of Western broadcast media and associated cultural memes predict the iv consolidation of democratic political values, and how ought any impact of these memes be interpreted in the light of modernity, Eurocentricity and cultural hegemony? To account for the impact of exogenous cultural influence, foreign policy prescriptions that encourage the growth of indigenous, mimetic, democratic civic culture would appear to be an effective means of supporting democracy in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. / by John R. Batey. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.