This thesis explores the leadership styles of three female presidents in Latin America: Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Argentina) y Dilma Rousseff (Brazil). These three women were chosen because each has been the first generally elected female president in their respective countries. Each woman’s profile is divided into two parts: 1) an expository evaluation of the life and career of each woman, and 2) a case study of her specific leadership style based on a particular event or challenge faced during her presidency. It is important to understand the political trajectories of these women because they demonstrate how certain cultural, structural, and institutional barriers have broken over time, allowing more women to ascend to the highest political offices. On the other hand, each case serves to enrich our holistic understanding of some of the current female presidents and in what ways they have been successful leaders. In general, Bachelet has been a transformational leader, Fernández de Kirchner has been a charismatic leader, and Rousseff has been an authentic relational leader. Through these case studies, we see that there is no one “feminine” leadership style, a conclusion which coincides with the existing literature.

Considers Bolivian Andean indigenous forms of democracy and resistance to neoliberal water privatization in Cochabamba. Incorporates environmental identity into the intersectional theoretical framework with principles rooted in Indigenous grass roots theory, Marxist critiques on capitalism, Latin American Neomarxist scholars, and Environmental Justice. Focuses on intersections of ethnicity, gender and class identities with environmental identity to understand the extent to which environmental injustices cannot be addressed in isolation from other sources of inequality.

In Sweden there is scepticism if there really is a difference between the two biggest political parties, the Moderate/Conservative party and the Swedish Social Democrats. The voters feels that the arguments used by both parties are more or less the same and that it does not matter on whom you vote. Hence I am going to compare the parties’ policy programs, developed by the members in each party, by an analysis of ideas to see if the two parties are so similar that they hardly are two different options, or if there is a divergence between the two.   My choosing of the parties’ policy programs comes from a decision to look at the members’ party, they are the authors of the programs, the core. I have to admit I am not unbiased in this work. Since December 2005 I have been active in the Swedish Social Democratic Youth, and later on the Swedish Social Democrats where I had a seat in the municipal council in Kalmar between 2010 and 2014. In February this year I changed party to the Left Party, and now am solely a member. This may affect my presentation of the parties, so read critically, but since my work is not about interpretation but presentation, my political background should have minimal effect on this work.   For over 100 years the Social Democrats more or less had power in Sweden, and the Moderate/Conservative party were in opposition. This changed in 2006, and the bourgeois government got a new mandate to govern in the general election 2010.  Looking at the political subjects of work, economy, welfare, education, the EU, immigration and environment; I found out that the parties often share the same goals, but differ in how to get there. Some core differences could be found, the moderate/conservative party both has lowered taxes as a goal as well as a meaning to get to the goal, and they argue warm heartily about more private corporations in the welfare sector.  The Social Democrats on the other hand argues for investments in the welfare sector (and hence higher taxation) and the rights of the labourers.   This results in a conclusion that when the parties are discussing goals, they are fairly similar. But if you look at the means to reach the goals, they do have their differences and it does matter on which party you vote.

In this thesis, I seek to understand the historical process by which Haiti has become a site of economic exploitation and labor coercion. I identify a remarkable continuity in the justification of economic oppression at three historical junctures: the reestablishment of plantation production under Toussaint Louverture in 1800, the agrarian development projects implemented by the American occupation 1918 and 1929, and the IMF agricultural liberalization measures implemented in between 1986/87 and 1993/94. I argue that a violent and chronically unstable juxtaposition between “civilized” elites and “uncivilized” masses creates and sustains a political system of brutal exploitation. A racialized logic lies at the heart of the civilization fantasy and maintains the economic, political and cultural configurations of peasant and proletariat oppression in Haiti.

The following thesis outlines the state of inter-service rivalry between the Mexican army and the navy. This thesis discusses both the technical and philosophical reasons as to why the two services are so competitive and explains some reasons as to why the two services cannot seem to work together in any capacity. My findings suggest that in order for Mexico to overcome this inter-service rivalry within their armed forces, they must increase civilian oversight and create a unifying civilian institution that promotes and fosters collaboration and accountability.

While political parties in Europe are incredibly adaptable organizations, they have varied in the extent to which they are able to adapt to social and political transformations. I explain parties' adaptability in two steps. 1) Adaptability depends on factionalism in a nonlinear way. Giving too much room and no room at all to factions undermines a party's ability to adapt. 2) Factionalism depends on early organizational characteristics. The more centralized the initially introduced leadership selection process is, the more party elites will be incentivized to form factions. This argument applies to political parties that allow for internal competition and elect their leaders according to formal rules. I use statistical tools, a medium- and small-N analysis and systematic process tracing to test my framework against competing explanations. I focus on Christian democracy to use a most-similar system design. The main empirical part of the thesis relies on a structured focused comparison of the Italian DC, Austrian ÖVP and German CDU. It is guided by a nested analysis and builds on a large amount of primary data which has not been analyzed before. I test my theory on the additional cases of the Portuguese, Dutch and Luxembourgian Christian Democrats and the French MRP. My main finding is that early organizational choices matter. The initial form the leadership selection process takes has a decisive impact on the incentives of intra-party actors to form factions. The initial level of factionalism becomes deeply entrenched in the party's organization and internal code of practice. This explains why party elites are unlikely to change it when they realize that their party's level of factionalism undermines its adaptability. Moving beyond the focus of path dependence on a single level has thus important implications for the literature on party politics, factionalism, party organizations and institutional development.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:17:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 62080100014.pdf: 249622 bytes, checksum: 829bac2f7cac2380e52716e3562fbd6f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-02-26T00:00:00Z / The relation between Economic Development and Democratic Transition/Consolidation is subject that generated the largest body of research in comparative politics. This work is a literature revision and covers the main authors from the most representative theoretical lines on the subject. The authors included are Seymour Lipset, Karl Deutsch, Barrington Moore Jr., Juan Linz, Guillermo O’Donnell, Phillipe Schmitter, Adam Przeworski, Michael E. Alvarez, José Antonio Cheibub, Fernando Limongi, Charles Boix, Susan Stokes, Daren Acemoglu, James Robinson, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, John D. Stephens and Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pererira. / A relação entre Desenvolvimento Econômico e Transição/Consolidação democrática é o tema de maior polêmica na área de Política Comparada. Esse trabalho é uma revisão da literatura, e cobre os principais autores das linhas teóricas mais importantes sobre o tema. Os autores revisados são Seymour Lipset, Karl Deutsch, Barrington Moore Jr., Juan Linz, Guillermo O’Donnell, Phillipe Schmitter, Adam Przeworski, Michael E. Alvarez, José Antonio Cheibub, Fernando Limongi, Charles Boix, Susan Stokes, Daren Acemoglu, James Robinson, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, John D. Stephens e Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pererira

Esta dissertação de mestrado apresenta um estudo comparativo de socialização política de jovens em escolas pública e privadas de Porto Alegre/RS. Utiliza-se o conceito de competência cívica, entendido como sistema complexo de desempenho psicossocial, com o objetivo de comparar o acúmulo de recursos políticos afetivos e cognitivos desenvolvidos nos dois modelos de escola, que podem ser mobilizados para o engajamento político. A hipótese central é, no processo de socialização política, dada a grande diferença de qualidade da educação, as escolas públicas e privadas reproduzem as desigualdades sociais e econômicas no âmbito da formação da competência cívica dos jovens, o que impacta na sua capacidade de participar politicamente. Para isso, utiliza-se dados de pesquisa survey realizada no âmbito do Núcleo de Pesquisa sobre América Latina da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul em 2015. O trabalho identifica que o sistema público de ensino básico não forma cidadãos capacitados para participar politicamente. Pelo contrário, a desigualdade de recurso entre os grupos é significativa em todas as dimensões avaliadas. Enquanto, os jovens de ensino privado se apresentam mais próximos de um ideal assertivo de cidadania, os jovens de ensino público reproduzem as características de uma cultura política híbrida, demonstrando mais apatia, ineficácia e descrença, e menos informação e habilidades cívicas. / This master’s level dissertation presents a comparative study of political socialization of youths in public and private schools of Porto Alegre/RS. Based on the concept of civic competence, understood as a complex system of psychosocial performance, the work aims to compare the reserves of affective and cognitive political resources developed in both types of school, which may be mobilized for political engagement. The hypothesis is that, in the process of political socialization, given the difference of quality of education, public schools propagates socioeconomic inequality in the ambit of the formation of civic competence in young people, which impacts in their capacity to participate politically. For this goal, survey data is employed, which was develop by the Research Center on Latin America (NUPESAL) of the University of Rio Grande do Sul in 2015. The work identifies that the public basic system of education does not form capable citizens to participate politically. On the contrary, resource inequality is significant in all evaluated dimensions. While students in private school are closer to an assertive ideal of citizenship, those in public schools reproduce the characteristics of a hybrid political culture, presenting more apathy, inefficacy and disbelief, and less civic information and abilities.

Growing economic inequality and cultural heterogeneity has brought increased attention to the issue of 'unity in diversity', that is, the state of being joined together or being in agreement in the presence of actual and perceived differences among people. Despite the growing interest in 'politics in divided societies', many political-sociological aspects of this issue remain largely unexplored. At the heart of this thesis lies an interest in explaining how social forces shape political preferences regarding the tension between unity and diversity in contemporary democracies. More specifically, this research seeks to understand how social (and identity-based) cleavages affect public responses to the idea of solidarity-based welfare provision and the reconciliation of increased ethnic diversity with national unity (including the functioning of the welfare state). Drawing on the institutionalist view that pre-existing policy creates mass politics (policy feedback effect), the study also investigates whether institutional structures condition the association between social forces and political attitudes. Although several chapters put particular emphasis on policy feedback effects (e.g., Chapters 2, 3, and 5), they are still within the general scope of this thesis, that is, the 'social embeddedness of political attitudes'. The thesis consists of two parts: the first assesses the explanatory power of socioeconomic status and social policy structures in predicting public attitudes toward income inequality, redistribution, and taxation policies (Chapters 2 to 4), and the second examines how differences in occupational status and national identity result in differences in reactions to welfare chauvinism and multiculturalism (Chapters 5 and 6). Taken together, the findings of this study underscore the importance of social cleavages, identity, and institutional structures in explaining why and under what conditions people are more likely to sacrifice part of their private interest or particularistic identity for the common good or the general welfare of all individuals in a community, in a situation of growing economic inequality and increased cultural plurality.

Esta dissertação de mestrado apresenta um estudo comparativo de socialização política de jovens em escolas pública e privadas de Porto Alegre/RS. Utiliza-se o conceito de competência cívica, entendido como sistema complexo de desempenho psicossocial, com o objetivo de comparar o acúmulo de recursos políticos afetivos e cognitivos desenvolvidos nos dois modelos de escola, que podem ser mobilizados para o engajamento político. A hipótese central é, no processo de socialização política, dada a grande diferença de qualidade da educação, as escolas públicas e privadas reproduzem as desigualdades sociais e econômicas no âmbito da formação da competência cívica dos jovens, o que impacta na sua capacidade de participar politicamente. Para isso, utiliza-se dados de pesquisa survey realizada no âmbito do Núcleo de Pesquisa sobre América Latina da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul em 2015. O trabalho identifica que o sistema público de ensino básico não forma cidadãos capacitados para participar politicamente. Pelo contrário, a desigualdade de recurso entre os grupos é significativa em todas as dimensões avaliadas. Enquanto, os jovens de ensino privado se apresentam mais próximos de um ideal assertivo de cidadania, os jovens de ensino público reproduzem as características de uma cultura política híbrida, demonstrando mais apatia, ineficácia e descrença, e menos informação e habilidades cívicas. / This master’s level dissertation presents a comparative study of political socialization of youths in public and private schools of Porto Alegre/RS. Based on the concept of civic competence, understood as a complex system of psychosocial performance, the work aims to compare the reserves of affective and cognitive political resources developed in both types of school, which may be mobilized for political engagement. The hypothesis is that, in the process of political socialization, given the difference of quality of education, public schools propagates socioeconomic inequality in the ambit of the formation of civic competence in young people, which impacts in their capacity to participate politically. For this goal, survey data is employed, which was develop by the Research Center on Latin America (NUPESAL) of the University of Rio Grande do Sul in 2015. The work identifies that the public basic system of education does not form capable citizens to participate politically. On the contrary, resource inequality is significant in all evaluated dimensions. While students in private school are closer to an assertive ideal of citizenship, those in public schools reproduce the characteristics of a hybrid political culture, presenting more apathy, inefficacy and disbelief, and less civic information and abilities.