This thesis discusses the impact of the United States' foreign economic policy on the legal and political systems of Taiwan. Its focus is the bilateral negotiations between Taiwan and the United States and the evolution of the legal and political systems on Taiwan. The widely acknowledged economic miracle of Taiwan has been combined, in recent years, with a deliberate attempt to transform the country's political structures in a democratic direction. Paradoxically, Taiwan's move towards democracy has seriously strained Taiwan / United States relations. For many years, the special relations between the two countries were characterised by Taiwan's almost total dependency on the United States both as a market for its products as well as a protector of its territorial integrity. The end of the Cold War, the new role of the People's Republic of China and the globalisation of the international economy have brought this special relation to an end. The changing nature of the relationship between the United States and Taiwan has not, however, brought an end the traditional behaviour of the United States towards Taiwan which was characterised by aggressive unilateralism. This thesis argues that in the changing context of the 1990s as the negotiating agenda between the two countries expand, the aggressive unilateralism of the United States is undermining the process of democratisation and eroding the rule of law on Taiwan. In order to comply with American pressure, the government of Taiwan is forced to resort to authoritarian measures based on the old corporatist framework that the transition to democracy is meant to supersede. Interestingly, the implications of the undemocratic consequences of these pressure do not seem to concern the United States, as short term economic advantage takes precedence over other considerations. For Taiwan, the way out of this vicious circle of external pressure - undemocratic response - external pressure is to diversify its international economic links. The problems and implications of this policy options are discussed in the thesis. The specific policy areas analysed in this thesis are commodity trade, trade in services and intellectual property protection.

This study is concerned with the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) development administration with particular emphasis on the effect of its social and cultural features on its bureaucracy and indigenous civil servants. The thesis analyses the U.A.E.'s political and historical background and its effects on the federal bureaucracy. It stresses that unless we understand the political and historical origins of the country, we will not be able to comprehend its administrative system. The study examines the ecology of the U.A.E.'s public administration. It identifies socio-cultural, educational and demographic variables as the three main ecological forces that play a significant role. The thesis provides a theoretical appraisal of the working of the federal administrative machinery in the U.A.E. It examines the administrative functions of the Federal Council of Ministers and the Federal Civil Service Council and identifies their weaknesses. The study explores the administrative problems facing the federal bureaucracy. Administrative inflation, shortage of indigenous skilled manpower, lack of job classification and the weakness of federal apparatuses in comparison to their local counterparts are the major stumbling blocks in the way of efficient administration in the U.A.E. Through a questionnaire based survey which obtained 312 (81%) responses the thesis empirically confirms the linkage between the indigenous employees' administrative performance and the socio-cultural variables surrounding them. It reveals that most of the irrational attitudes and behaviour of indigenous employees are not solely the result of corruption but rather of the social and cultural pressures which force them to apply particularistic approaches i.e. nepotism, favouritism,etc, in order to satisfy their familial interests over their organizational interests. Accordingly, most indigenous civil servants decline to recognize the administrative obligations of their jobs as being more essential than their familial obligations.

This thesis aims to provide a view point from which we can understand the long-term historical transformations of Korean politics since the late fourteenth century. I will attempt to illustrate the overall configuration of Korean politics with sociological reference to three questions: what kinds of political events have occurred? Which political issues have led to the participation of major political actors? How have these actors shown their political orientation in practice and how have events and actors determined politics, or, if there is no determination, how have they influenced the overall shape of politics? The concept of modernity in this thesis is mainly used to indicate the embodiment of political actors’ alternative visions without necessarily accepting the widely acknowledged assumption that modernity is the epochal quality of the contemporary period which exclusively enjoy. Some sociologists, especially in comparative-historical sociology, since the late 1990s have shown their intellectual interest in conceptualizing ‘multiple modernities'. They recognize the importance of theorizing the existence of plural forms of societal development for the contemporary situation, while some classical ideas on modernity based on the European or American experience have been critically evaluated in regional studies. If the Korean experience is regarded as an example of multiple modernities, it is not because the political boundary itself - which has been called Korea, as well as Chosun, Koryo, Balhac/Shilla, etc. -, has its own distinctive political and cultural color. Rather it is because the actors in Korean history generally, have shown themselves to be a good example for evaluating modernity. Regardless of quite different historical trajectories, the compatibility of the Korean experience with others under the title of multiple modernities, can be adduced both from the way in which human practices have emerged in their collective form, with their own political orientations, and in the relationship to other actors within a boundary.