It is well documented that during the course of World War II, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler oversaw the plunder of countless works of art throughout Europe. The purpose of this paper is to explore the rationale behind the systematic art theft, understand the international politics and policy of restitution, and consider its geopolitical significance. The relationship between art and the various methods in which it intersects with international politics has been a guiding theme. As we quickly approach a more interconnected world, it has become increasingly necessary to explore how past injustices may continue to influence current diplomatic efforts. Through the analysis of various case studies identifying points of contention between nations, unhealed resentment over WWII-era injustices were identified and explored in greater depth. Although countries have made progress towards mediation and restitution, there is still much to be done in order to repair international relationships. Moving forward, it is essential to advance these efforts towards a mutually agreeable resolution.

Os partidos latino-americanos são muito diversos e poucos estudos se ocupam da comparação de suas organizações. Este estudo analisa e classifica a organização interna dos partidos políticos latino-americanos, comparando o conteúdo de 42 estatutos partidários distribuídos nos 18 países democráticos da região. A comparação ocorre a partir do uso do método comparado e da identificação da ausência e/ou presença de determinados conteúdos em suas cartas orgânicas, de modo a mapear sua organização e possibilitar a construção de uma escala de pertencimentos das agremiações no quesito organizacional. A visão predominante sobre a região aponta para um caso de subdesenvolvimento partidário, no qual as agremiações são descritas como dotadas de organizações internas frágeis e em muitos casos inexistentes. Este trabalho não compartilha este posicionamento e argumenta que a América Latina apresenta um amplo espectro partidário em que convive dotadas de diferentes graus de organização. De modo a solucionar esta questão optamos por focar a análise em suas características organizacionais de modo a compreender os diferentes padrões exibidos em um estudo mais descritivo. Como premissa básica, partimos do princípio que os partidos políticos são, antes de tudo, organizações, as quais refletem as escolhas e objetivos de seus membros em um ambiente limitado. Como resultados, encontramos os seguintes: 1) o cenário partidário encontrado não é tão negativo quanto o exposto pela bibliografia sobre a região; 2) a região exibe um rico cenário, que reflete as diferentes estratégias das agremiações latino-americanas; 3) a ideologia e o tipo originário exercem grande influência sobre a determinação do desenho organizacional e; 4) as regulamentações a que os partidos estão sujeitos definem os limites das organizações. / Latin american parties are very diverse and few studies show a comparison of their organization. This study analyzes and classifies the internal organization of 42 Latin American political parties distributed in 18 democratic countries, comparing the content of their statutes. Using the comparative method we pointed the absence and / or presence of certain contents in the party organic charts, in order to map their organization and build a scale of affiliation to the organization. The predominant view describes an underdevelopment of the parties in Latin America, with a fragile association to internal organizations, that is even absent in many cases. This thesis does not share this position and sustain that Latin America has a broad partisan spectrum, which coexists with different degrees of organization. In order to solve this question and understand the different patterns exhibited, we focused the analysis on its organizational aspects, using a descriptive approach. As a basic premise, we assume that political parties are, above all, organizations, and it reflects the choices and goals of their members in a limited environment. The following results were found: 1) the party scenario found is not as negative as exposed by previous works about that region; 2) the region presents a rich scenario, which reflects the different strategies of Latin American associations; 3) ideology and the original type of party exert great influence on the determination of organizational design and; 4) the regulations to which the parties are subjected define the boundaries of organizations.

Os partidos latino-americanos são muito diversos e poucos estudos se ocupam da comparação de suas organizações. Este estudo analisa e classifica a organização interna dos partidos políticos latino-americanos, comparando o conteúdo de 42 estatutos partidários distribuídos nos 18 países democráticos da região. A comparação ocorre a partir do uso do método comparado e da identificação da ausência e/ou presença de determinados conteúdos em suas cartas orgânicas, de modo a mapear sua organização e possibilitar a construção de uma escala de pertencimentos das agremiações no quesito organizacional. A visão predominante sobre a região aponta para um caso de subdesenvolvimento partidário, no qual as agremiações são descritas como dotadas de organizações internas frágeis e em muitos casos inexistentes. Este trabalho não compartilha este posicionamento e argumenta que a América Latina apresenta um amplo espectro partidário em que convive dotadas de diferentes graus de organização. De modo a solucionar esta questão optamos por focar a análise em suas características organizacionais de modo a compreender os diferentes padrões exibidos em um estudo mais descritivo. Como premissa básica, partimos do princípio que os partidos políticos são, antes de tudo, organizações, as quais refletem as escolhas e objetivos de seus membros em um ambiente limitado. Como resultados, encontramos os seguintes: 1) o cenário partidário encontrado não é tão negativo quanto o exposto pela bibliografia sobre a região; 2) a região exibe um rico cenário, que reflete as diferentes estratégias das agremiações latino-americanas; 3) a ideologia e o tipo originário exercem grande influência sobre a determinação do desenho organizacional e; 4) as regulamentações a que os partidos estão sujeitos definem os limites das organizações. / Latin american parties are very diverse and few studies show a comparison of their organization. This study analyzes and classifies the internal organization of 42 Latin American political parties distributed in 18 democratic countries, comparing the content of their statutes. Using the comparative method we pointed the absence and / or presence of certain contents in the party organic charts, in order to map their organization and build a scale of affiliation to the organization. The predominant view describes an underdevelopment of the parties in Latin America, with a fragile association to internal organizations, that is even absent in many cases. This thesis does not share this position and sustain that Latin America has a broad partisan spectrum, which coexists with different degrees of organization. In order to solve this question and understand the different patterns exhibited, we focused the analysis on its organizational aspects, using a descriptive approach. As a basic premise, we assume that political parties are, above all, organizations, and it reflects the choices and goals of their members in a limited environment. The following results were found: 1) the party scenario found is not as negative as exposed by previous works about that region; 2) the region presents a rich scenario, which reflects the different strategies of Latin American associations; 3) ideology and the original type of party exert great influence on the determination of organizational design and; 4) the regulations to which the parties are subjected define the boundaries of organizations.

Sectarianism has shaped Lebanese culture since the establishment of the National Pact in 1943, and continues to be a pervasive roadblock to Lebanon’s path to development. This thesis explores the role of religion, politics, and Lebanon’s illegitimate government institutions in accentuating identity-based divisions, and fostering an environment for sectarianism to emerge. In order to do this, I begin by providing an analysis of Lebanon’s history and the rise and fall of major religious confessions as a means to explore the relationship between power-sharing arrangements and sectarianism, and to portray that sectarian identities are subject to change based on shifting power dynamics and political reforms. Next, I present different contexts in which sectarianism has amplified the country’s underdevelopment and fostered an environment for political instability, foreign and domestic intervention, lack of government accountability, and clientelism, among other factors, to occur. A case study into Iraq is then utilized to showcase the implications of implementing a Lebanese-style power-sharing arrangement elsewhere, and further evaluate its impact in constructing sectarian identities. Finally, I conclude that it is possible to eliminate sectarianism in Lebanon and move towards a secular state. While there are still many challenges to face in overcoming a long-established system of governance, I highlight the anti-sectarian partisan movements that are advocating for change, and their optimistic path to success.

As guerras civis começaram a ser estudadas quantitativamente há poucos anos, com número de publicações crescente na área. Os determinantes do início de guerra civil foram paulatinamente desvendados por meio de pesquisa empírica. Alguns resultados são de que elas ocorrem geralmente em países de baixa renda; em países que são dependentes da exportação de produtos naturais; que obtiveram sua independência há poucos anos; que tiveram conflitos recentes; cujas populações apresentam características etno-lingüísticas ou religiosas um pouco heterogêneas e polarizadas; que têm a presença de um regime ao mesmo tempo com peculiaridades autoritárias e democráticas e que apresenta instabilidade política; em países que se encontram em terrenos de difícil acesso, como áreas montanhosas ou florestas densas; dentre outros. Embora essas guerras ocorram geralmente em zonas rurais e as massas participantes são formadas particularmente por camponeses, em busca de melhores e mais dignas condições de vida, mesmo que conduzidos por líderes urbanos e instruídos, a academia não deu a devida atenção empírica a essas questões até o momento, apesar de tratá-las, em parte, numa literatura mais antiga e qualitativa. A proposta desta tese é abordar assuntos de natureza agrária analisados empiricamente, com o intuito de incluir os fatores agrários no conjunto dos determinantes de guerras civis com os quais a literatura já trabalha. Foram abordados temas relevantes relacionados às questões agrárias para verificar se são determinantes de guerra civil. Entre eles, o papel da demografia rural e da concentração de terra, o nível de produtividade no campo, além do tipo de camponês. Ao final, foram encontrados resultados estatísticos relevantes que endossam os fatores agrários como parte do composto que levaria ao início da guerra civil. Mesmo que a concentração de terra não tenha sido efetivamente comprovada como determinante para que guerras civis ocorram, os outros três fatores agrários confirmaram-se como determinantes desse evento, em conjunto com os outros fatores que a literatura aborda. Não se podem ignorar fatores agrários na ocorrência de guerras civis se estas eclodem em zonas rurais, têm os camponeses como os principais participantes nas massas rebeldes, e suas adesões à luta armada originam-se das questões agrárias não resolvidas. / The quantitative study of civil wars started few years ago, with an increasing number of publications in that field. The determinants of civil wars? onset were built gradually by empirical research. Some of their results show that they occur in: poor and developing states; dependent natural resources export countries; young states; countries with recent conflicts, states with a small heterogeneous population, polarized or dominant; places where the political regime is hybrid and politically unstable; terrain of difficult access, with lots of mountains or dense forests; etc. Despite these wars occur at large in rural regions where the peasants are the main actors looking for a better and dignified life, even if their leaders are urban and educated individuals, the scholars did not deserve the appropriated empirical and quantitative attention to agrarian issues, as they do with other mentioned civil war determinants. This thesis proposal approaches the agrarian themes quantitatively, with the aim to include the agrarian indicator within the civil wars? determinants. The relevant questions whose will be dealt are: which kind of peasants participate in civil wars? Which tasks have the concentration of land, the rural demography, and the level of agricultural productivity to the civil war onset? At the end, the statistical results are relevant and they have confirmed the agrarian indicator as part of the determinants of civil wars? onset. Even if the concentration of land did not achieve the expected outcome, mainly because of data problems than due to variables? relationship, the other determinants were pertinent and suitable.

This thesis examines why party systems of some developing countries become deeper and more quickly stabilised than others. Drawing on the scholarship of party system institutionalisation in third wave democracies, the thesis argues that the field can be strengthened by looking to three factors that the current literature has taken for granted: the role of cleavages, the function of personalistic politics, and the requirement of legitimacy to assess party systems. This thesis addresses these issues and in so doing provides a novel view of how, when and why party systems in newer democracies from Latin America, Europe and Asia consolidate over time. The research considers three case studies from three regions of the world, following the most similar approach method of comparison. One country per world region has been chosen for study in detail: Chile (Latin America), Estonia (Central and Eastern Europe) and South Korea (East and Southeast Asia). They all have party systems which have become more stable over time, but they exhibit different trajectories and speeds of consolidation. The thesis uses a variety of methods. In order to infer the causes of different processes of institutionalisation from party systems’ own participants, more than 120 elite interviews were conducted in the three countries over 13 months. To evaluate the overall legitimacy of the stabilisation process, this works presents the results of almost 500 face-to-face interviews with randomly selected individuals from the population. Quantitative analyses based on secondary public opinion surveys are used to test implications and observations, and offer potential generalisations. The findings suggests: 1) Where the ideological cleavage (left-right) is a strong determinant of party support the party system is more stable, and the stronger the ideological cleavage becomes over time, the more consolidated the party system is. Here, an ideological trauma can be at the core of the limitations of the left-right scope development. 2) Party systems with personalistic leaders can consolidate, contrary to the received wisdom, if charismatic figures build their parties around programmatic lines. And 3) legitimacy should not be regarded as a dimension for the Theory of Party System Institutionalisation, because it does not contribute in any way, positive or negative, to the stability of party systems. The thesis concludes that theories of party system institutionalisation should be reconsidered with respect to cleavages, personalism and legitimacy. In so doing, the growing literature on party system institutionalisation can benefit from a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities of party systems in new democracies from different regions of the world.

In this dissertation, I argue that transnational elites within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been integrated within a Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC) economically, militarily and politically through relationships that transcend the boundaries of the nation-state. These relationships exist within the context of a global capitalist structure of accumulation that is dependent on the maintenance of a repressive state apparatus in the GCC. There have been few attempts to analyze the relationships that Middle Eastern political and economic elites have developed with global elite networks. This work fills an important gap in the scholarly literature by linking the political and economic power of the GCC elites to transnational capitalist class actors in the U.S. and Western Europe. The TCC is comprised of actors who derive their wealth and power from ownership of production or financial activities on a global scale. The embeddedness of GCC elites within the TCC came with the de-centralization of capital accumulation occurring from the 1970s through the present that has linked regional and local capitalists to the ownership activities of transnational capitalist firms. The GCC is an important case study for analyzing the structure and consequences the current phase of globalization due to its relative vi importance in providing resources and financing for transnational globalization. Therefore this project contributes to our assessment of the role played by transnational elites in the GCC and the regional and global consequences of their power struggles based in part on a theoretical framework derived from Neo-Gramscianism.

As the 29-year Duvalier dictatorship ended in 1986, the emergence of Mouvement Lavalas out of the grassroots organizations of Haiti's poor majority, and election of charismatic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990, challenged efforts by Haitian political parties and the U.S. foreign policy establishment to contain the parameters of Haiti's democratic transition. This dissertation examines the politics of Lavalas to determine whether it held a particular conception of democracy that explains the movement's antagonistic relationship with the political parties and U.S. democracy promoters. Using the qualitative methodology of process-tracing outlined in the works of Paul F. Steinberg (2004) and Tulia G. Falleti (2006), this study analyzes primary and secondary sources associated with Aristide and the grassroots organizations across the period of contested democratization from 1986 to 1991, with emphasis on four critical junctures: 1) the rule of the Conseil National du Gouvernement; 2) the government of Leslie Manigat; 3) the military regimes of Henri Namphy and Prosper Avril; and 4) Aristide's 8 months in power before being overthrown on September 29, 1991. This study concludes that there were systematic differences in how Lavalas pursued democracy in Haiti, as contrasted to the political parties and U.S. foreign policy-makers. Evidence indicates that while Lavalas placed emphasis on popular mobilization to challenge Haiti's legacy of authoritarianism, the political parties and U.S. democracy promoters emphasized processes of negotiation and compromise with Haiti's anti-democratic forces. Lavalas was rooted in the long historic struggle of the country's poor masses to, not simply establish procedural democracy, what noted political scientist Robert Dahl calls polyarchy, but to expand the parameters of politics to guarantee the right of all Haitians to participate directly in the process of governing, in order to share more equitably in the distribution of national resources, in what critical scholar William I. Robinson calls "popular democracy."

Botswana has recently garnered analytic attention as an anomaly of the “resource curse” phenomenon. Worldwide, countries whose economies are highly skewed towards a dependence on the export of non-renewable natural resources such as oil, diamonds and uranium, have been among the most troubled, authoritarian, poverty-stricken and conflict-prone; a phenomenon widely regarded as the “resource curse". The resource curse explains the varying fortunes of countries based on their resource wealth, with resource-rich countries faring much worse than their resource-poor counterparts. However, Botswana, with diamond exports accounting for 50percent of government revenues and 80percent of total exports, has achieved one of the fastest economic growth rates in the developing world in the last 50 years. Furthermore, the Freedom House ranks it as the safest, most stable, least corrupt and most democratic country on sub-Saharan Africa. In attempting to answer why Botswana apparently escaped the “resource curse”, this research assumes that both formal and informal institutions within the state acted as intermediary variables in determining its fortune. This research thus addresses the deeper question of where Botswana obtained its unique institutional quality that facilitated its apparent escape of the resource curse. It traces Botswana’s history through four lenses: legitimacy and historical continuity, political culture, ethnicity and identity management, and external relations; as having explanatory value in understanding the Botswana exception. The research finds most evidence of Botswana’s institutional quality emanating from the country’s political culture which it found more compatible with the institutions of development and democracy that facilitate both positive economic and political outcomes. It also found evidence of legitimacy and historical continuity facilitating the robustness of both formal and informal institutions in Botswana, and identity management through assimilation as having buffered against the effects of ethnically motivated resource plunder. It however, found the least support for the assertion that external relations contributed to institutional quality.

This study is concerned with the particular relationship between the process of nationalism and a group’s salient identity. It proposes that nationalism as the independent variable serves as a principal factor and facilitator for a change of identity, which is seen as the dependent variable. The Bosnian Muslim emergence as an independent nation with the new salient Bosniak identity was used as a case study to test the main proposition. The inquiry was completed through a mixed research method, using grounded theory and the historic process tracing technique, a large survey analysis collected specifically for this study, and a logistic regression as a concluding test. The historic process tracing method describes the Bosnian Muslim group’s development from a distinct Balkan Ottoman religious millet group, through a stage of its own ethno-religious cultural crystallization, another stage of nationality during the Communist era, to an independent nation that now shares the country of Bosnia-Herzegovina with two other nations. Through their struggle to survive and re-assert themselves as an important local political entity, Bosniaks built their nationalism upon three important themes: B-H integrity, Bosnian Islam, and the Bosnian language. A 68-question survey regarding these three themes designed specifically for this study was conducted, and 670 survey responses were collected from the Bosnian Muslim diaspora population living throughout the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. in their Appadurai-type neighborhoods. The data collected from those surveys were manipulated in preparation for a final analysis. The two nationalism indexes measuring intensity and type, and six categories of Bosniak identity, were constructed to observe interactions between nationalism and identity. As the final step, a statistical analysis with multinomial logistic regression confirmed the proposition and showed that the factor which stimulates selection of a new desired salient identity is intensity of nationalism, not type of nationalism . This work contributes to the ongoing discussion on the true role of nationalism as a collective action. At the same time, it provides the field of comparative politics with a comprehensive description of the emergence of Bosnian Muslims as a nation, and with details of their nationalism project and their now salient Bosniak identity.