This thesis examines through the means of a comparative perspective, factors which have allowed the British National Party to enjoy recent electoral success at the local level under the leadership of party chairman Nick Griffin. Such electoral successes have arisen despite the seemingly relative obscurity of the party at the turn of the century. A number of different aspects are examined in order to achieve this aim. The history of the far right in the UK is examined to establish whether the BNP have changed their stance in comparison to previous far right movements. The BNP are also investigated comparatively with other West European parties who have enjoyed national success, as a means of discovering whether the party are similar to their far right neighbours and why they have not enjoyed similar national success. The press coverage of the BNP is examined at a local and national level, using content analysis and the LexisNexis database. The thesis looks at the role played by the BNP in local elections and the decline of participation in political activity, to establish if there is a link between these two factors. Finally a case study is taken of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, to establish directly if any of the above factors can be directly applied to BNP electoral success in this district. The research discovers that there are opportunities for the BNP to establish a connection with the electorate in local politics which are not necessarily available at times of general election.

In recent years, criminal justice reform has become a hot-button issue in public policy realm. Public officials, academics, and activists alike have brought issues like police brutality, mandatory sentencing laws, and illicit drug policy to the forefront of the American political conversation. In an effort to contribute to this ongoing conversation, this thesis will explore three main topics within the criminal justice reform debate in the United States and provide potential solutions that policymakers can implement. The topics include illicit drug policy, mass-incarceration, and policing methods.

The influence of the Roman Republic and Empire is visible everywhere in the contemporary United States government. Some even propose a “democratic legacy” that the United States has inherited from the Roman Republic, a legacy that dooms modern America to a similar “decline and fall.” These arguments reached their apex in journalism surrounding the 2016 presidential election. A comparison between American Presidents and Roman Emperors proves that these assertions are false, employing case studies in each society’s democracy, interactions with deliberative bodies, public image management, and demagoguery. The distinctness of Roman and American social and political culture in each of these areas suggests a fundamental incongruity between the political figures of the two cultures. Even apparent commonalities can be misleading, as there are significant structural or cultural discrepancies that prevent scholars from drawing conclusions about Presidents using the Roman Imperial example. The argument of this thesis is therefore historiographical in nature: The findings this thesis contains suggest that modern scholars should not read history, specifically Roman history, to predict or justify present political circumstances. The comparisons made between Emperors and Presidents instead serve to prove the distinctness of contemporary American political culture as well as ancient Roman political culture. Acknowledgement of the uniqueness of both of these societies allows scholars to better understand both Presidents and Emperors within their own context. This separation will also lead to more directed, better informed study in the field of Roman history and in the field of modern American governmental policy.

I will argue that a discussion of sovereignty as it relates to internal conflict deepens our understanding of the Colombian conflict, and in turn, the Colombian conflict deepens the ongoing discussion on sovereignty. Internal armed conflict is a tool to free and dominate populations, to save and kill individuals, and to destroy and build institutions. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke set an initial framework for understanding sovereignty. Armed actors use violence to create a sphere of influence that overlaps with the state’s legal jurisdiction: armed actors use violence as a strategy of hegemonic state building. Overlapping territorial claims challenge the integrity of Colombian sovereignty. I will argue in this thesis that the Colombian example demonstrates that a government’s sovereignty can be threatened by an ideological competitor (FARC), outlaws -- whether state created (AUC) or independent of the state (drug cartels) -- and by foreign nations (US). If the collective actions of these actors can effectively contest the state’s legitimacy, comparative advantage in violence, and territorial claims, armed actors can effectively undermine the state’s sovereignty. In this way, the Colombian example is a rich case study in domestic sovereignty.

Rwanda is a small resource poor country in East Africa that has experienced almost two decades’ worth of significant growth following a genocide that claimed almost 10% of the country’s population. This paper explores the role of positive autonomy in the countries path to development hoping to demonstrate that countries that are ready to pursue independent policy initiatives ought to be encouraged to do so by their international partners. Positive autonomy has three defining characteristics; the ability of a country to pursue its own internally driven policy choices, especially in the face of external opposition but not necessarily in the face of opposition, “ownership” of a community over policy developments that affect them, i.e. their involvement in the administration of policy, and lastly, the ability of a country to reject policy propositions from the outside. Negative autonomy would be a lack of two or more of those conditions. Using this model, I seek to show that these three characteristics have been pursued by Rwanda as a result of its pre-genocide history. I also seek to show that these three characteristics have played a vital role in the development of Rwanda by allowing the government to pursue innovative strategies outside of international norms. To demonstrate this conclusion, I first look to the pre and post-colonial histories of Rwanda in order to examine the role of negative autonomy, seeking to build a case that demonstrates its lasting impact in Rwanda’s political character. I then examine an extreme case of negative autonomy in the case of the CFA monetary union followed by an extended examination of a clear case of positive autonomy in Rwanda and the benefits and failures it has produced. I then briefly examine the relationship between development aid and influence also demonstrating that Rwanda’s position on development aid mirrors its position on positive autonomy in general. Finally, I briefly examine three different examples of positive autonomy in Rwanda as a supplement to the extended example to demonstrate that some of the biggest policy initiatives undertaken by the Rwandan government are either the result of positive autonomy, are successful because of positive autonomy or can be drastically improved by a better implementation of positive autonomy. I hope that this research can be seen as a fresh lens for examining the relationship between weak and powerful states to validate the position that more autonomy for weaker states in their decision-making processes can produce much more successful results in their development drives.

Lebanon has historically been at the center of Middle Eastern conflict. Religious diversity and weak institutions have resulted in the country’s continual exploitation by powerful foreign states. At first, a historical overview of Lebanon demonstrates how certain events over the past 200 years have shaped the country. Based on recurring political and economic misfortunes, sectarian tensions within Lebanon have flared since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. This thesis argues that in order to stabilize the country and prevent the meddling of foreign powers, a focus must be placed on establishing a national identity, strengthening the country’s political institutions, and creating an accountable economic system.

The Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party was established in Syria during the mid-twentieth century, originally championing Arab unity and freedom from foreign influence. The party eventually managed to rise to power in Syria and Iraq, thereby concluding the widespread political instability that had previously plagued both countries. In each of these contexts, autocratic leaders emerged at the forefront of the ruling regimes and manipulated the party to bolster their rule for over three decades. This paper examines the Ba’ath party’s history and ideology to understand the party’s source of strength. It also discusses the party’s role in achieving power as well as the different functions it undertook in Syria and Iraq once autocratic rule was established. Finally, it studies the fall of both regimes and the status of the Ba’ath party today.

This study aims at ascertaining via a cross-country/cross-city comparison why different national contexts characterized by allegedly opposite ideologies concerning the incorporation of immigrants (namely, the British Race Relations/multicultural model and French republicanism) have led to the adoption of similar policy tools in the prevention of forced unions amongst young people of ethnic minority background. In order to do so, the study will examine French republican and British multicultural rhetoric and policies aimed at the prevention of forced marriage at different institutional levels, with a focus on the preventive role played by the educational sector and within a historical institutionalist theoretical framework. The comparison begins with a consideration of French and British national rhetoric and policies against forced marriage from 1997 to 2008 to develop an adequate framework for the analysis of the preventive role attributed to educational policies in four major localities (the capital cities, Paris and London, and the second two largest cities per population size, Lyon and Birmingham). Despite differences in the policies and rhetoric adopted by multicultural Britain and republican France to tackle forced unions, the study hypothesizes a common trend in the ways French and British public authorities conceptualize the practice of forced marriage - intended mainly as the product of cultural difference. Similarities in the conceptualization of the practice, in turn, have contributed to the identification of similar policy tools despite dissimilar institutional contexts. Such a hypothesis contrasts with one of the key claims of historical institutionalism, according to which dissimilar institutions lead to different policy outcomes across different countries. The study will introduce the role of ideas – in the form of frames (Bleich 2003) – as a tool to explain the reasons why French and British policies aimed at the prevention of forced unions have led to similar policy outcomes despite dissimilar institutional contexts.

As mudanças no mercado global da indústria de defesa ocorridas nos últimos trinta anos impõem desafios significativos para o desenvolvimento e sustentação da uma base industrial de defesa nacional. Países como o Brasil, que se encontram em posições intermediárias da hierarquia internacional de produção de armamentos, enfrentam ainda mais constrangimentos, dado o chamado trilema de modernização da defesa. A experiência de uma série de países intermediários vem mostrando que, apesar das dificuldades, é possível desenvolver estratégias eficientes para superar o trilema da modernização e desenvolver e sustentar a indústria de defesa nacional. O presente trabalho tem o objetivo de compreender as estratégias de desenvolvimento e sustentação da base industrial de defesa nacional, buscando identificar a relação entre três variáveis: a motivação política atribuída à indústria de defesa para a inserção estratégica internacional; os arranjos institucionais arquitetados para gerenciar e promover esta indústria específica; e a configuração do modelo de desenvolvimento e de sustentação da base industrial de defesa nacional. Com este intuito, comparamos estes conceitos em três casos de estudo: África do Sul, Austrália e Brasil Desde o princípio dos anos 2000, o Brasil vem enfatizando a importância estratégica das indústrias de defesa e tem criado políticas específicas voltadas à articulação dos elementos necessários ao fortalecimento desta variável de poder ;?internacional e de desenvolvimento tecnológico. As experiências de outros países podem auxiliar o Brasil a formular um modelo de desenvolvimento e sustentação da base industrial de defesa cada vez mais robusto, eficiente e adaptado aos desafios impostos por constrangimentos estruturais. / The changes in the global defense industry over the last thirty years poses significant challenges to the development and sustainability of a national defense industrial base. Countries such as Brazil, which are in an intermediate position on the international hierarchy of arms production, face even more constraints, given the so-called defence modernization trilemma. The experience of a number of intermediate countries has shown that, despite the difficulties, it is possible to develop efficient strategies to overcome the modernization trilemma and to develop and sustain the national defense industry. The present work aims to understand the strategies of development and sustainability of the national defense industry, identifying the relationship between three variables: the political motivation attributed to the defense industry for the international strategic insertion; the institutional arrangements designed to manage and promote this particular industry; and the configuration of the development model for the national defense industry For this purpose, we compare these concepts in three case studies: South Africa, Australia and Brazil. Since the beginning of the 2000s, Brazil has emphasized the strategic importance of the defense industries and has created specific policies aimed at articulating the elements necessary to strengthen this variable of international power and technological development. The experiences of other countries can help Brazil to formulate a model of development and sustainability of the national defense industry increasingly robust, efficient and adapted to the challenges imposed by structural constraints.

The overall purpose of this study is to assess various market-based versus aid based approaches to financial autonomy for Dalit women in rural India and the goals and assumptions of the multiple stakeholders involved in each method (mainly, national and international NGOs, the state, and micro-finance organizations). I argue that approaches to income generation such as entrepreneurship, capital investment, and skill building, are based on similar objectives of economic agency, but ultimately lend to different results because of their varying assumptions about “women’s empowerment.” By separating these approaches into three methods of income generation based on their objective to promote either wages, labor, or capital, the political incentives of each stakeholder becomes more clear. The research presented in my literature review ultimately led me to predict that for Dalit women in India to experience financial autonomy, wage labor that produces immediate outcomes is a more viable route to overall empowerment than entrepreneurship due to its cultural constraints women fact. However, after analyzing my comparative case studies which focused on three different methods of handicraft and textile production facilitated through state, institutional, private stakeholders, I began to see how a a multiple-income generating approach, such as combining the resources of NGOs, micro-finance, and the state, reduces caste and gender barriers to entrepreneurship. Through a feminist and Marxist analysis, I assess the problems that occur when actors determine a blanket approach to empowering all women without considering their diverse contexts, and more specifically, how different identities and standpoints work to inform and oppress notions of empowerment. My interviews with experts in the field have led me to recommend that methods of income generation facilitated through grassroots Self Help Groups is the best way for rural, Dalit women to women to achieve economic agency.