Protests have been important social phenomena for the wider Middle East, especially since the Arab Spring, with the potential to achieve dramatic change. Understanding the nature of uprisings in the region is important for our understanding of the present and the future. To this end, this thesis tried to make sense of the dynamics and processes that led to the emergence of three protests in the region, the 25th of January Revolution in Egypt, the Syrian Uprising, and the Gezi protest. It tried to analyze the different aspects in which they were comparable. Furthermore, it tried to analyze their representation in the media by uncovering the differences and similarities between the discourse of two Turkish newspapers, Sabah and Cumhuriyet, in their columns and news reports regarding these instances of protests. Critical discourse analysis was used alongside comparative case study to see the differences between social reality and the discourse of the newspapers. Also, the thesis tried to explain the discrepancies and commonalities between the discourse of the newspapers. When the protests were compared with the help of the existing literature, it was seen that the protests had some similarities in the aspects such as causes of protest, the performance of the protestors, and state reaction. Moreover,...

The present thesis aims to expand and acquire new knowledge on the emergence of portrait mummies during the Roman period in Egypt and their socio-religious status. The emergence and decorative program of these mummies are commonly understood as an artistic expression of Hellenistic Greek and Roman settlers in Egypt. This attestation is often based upon uncontextualized isolated portraits. The study of uncontextualized isolated portraits has also caused an unsatisfactory approach to dating criteria. In response, the present thesis aims to study contextualized portrait mummies – with the image of the deceased still forming part of the mummy and ideally with an attested find spot – in light of a multicultural society consisting of Egyptian, Hellenistic and Roman cultural and religious traditions.  A total of 85 portrait mummies have been collected to provide context for the expressed cultural traditions. Seven group burials have been reconstructed based upon excavation reports for further contextualization. The results of the collected portrait mummies and reconstructed group burials are subsequently studied against a background of Egyptian, Hellenistic and Roman cultural and religious traditions to highlight dominant cultural features. The results of the present thesis illustrate portrait mummies were an expression of a culturally complex society. The treatment of the body and decorative program suggests cultural and religious notions were rooted within Egyptian traditions that were appropriated, re-defined and adapted by a society comprised of Egyptians, Hellenes and Romans. Portrait mummies consequently express multiple cultural layers. Previously established dating criteria were found to remain to be the most valid and reliable. Contextualized portrait mummies, however, have put forward a new dating criterion that ought to be taken into consideration: octagonal framing.

The theme of this study will be the Arab Spring and democratization. The impact of the Arab Spring has, in one form or another, extended to almost all countries of the Arab region in the MENA. However, this paper will be limited to compare two countries, in particular, Tunisia and Egypt by analyzing their democratization and examining how two similar states achieved widely differing outcomes in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Tunisia and Egypt are both predominantly Muslim-majority, Arabic-speaking countries, and both of them were subject to authoritarian regimes (Ben Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt) before the outbreak of the Arab Spring. After the first wave of uprisings, Tunisia made remarkable progress in the transition to democracy, but in Egypt, the situation altered when the army overthrew a democratically elected president, and then the country underwent a counter-revolution, bringing it back to square one (i.e. the yoke of tyranny). The four variables that this research will revolve around as an explanation and possible analysis of the secret of this difference in outcomes between these two countries are the role of the international and regional community, the position of the military and armed forces in the state, the role of religious political parties, and the effectiveness of civil society organizations across the country. After reviewing all four variables, the final result of the paper suggests that the military, religious, international, and civil society variables are the strongest indicators of the reason for the great difference in the democratic progress in both countries. This paper facilitates an understanding of democratization by identifying the critical factors in determining whether a nation's transition from dictatorship to democracy will be successful or not. Key Words: the Middle East and North Africa, Arab Spring, Democratization, Egypt, Tunisia.

Available literature showed that the Egyptian diaspora (e.g., emigrants who share a common situations and work for the same cause) has been developing and engaging politically in the United States during the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The diasporas’ role was of interest to researchers and policymakers; however, the literature concerning diasporas has underexamined the Egyptian diaspora regarding its proliferation and active political engagement. Using the conflict and climate theories of Truman, and Cigler and Loomis in conjunction with the political engagement factors theory of Jang as the theoretical foundation of the study, the purpose was to explore how members of the diaspora explain and perceive their political engagement in Washington, DC. In this qualitative study, the key characteristics of diaspora and political and social factors of home and host countries that enable and inhibit that engagement regarding particular issues were addressed through 16 in-depth, face-to-face interviews with Egyptian-Americans. Maxwell and Miller’s doubled-strategy and Yin’s case study steps approach were used for analysis. The findings indicated that the engagement of the diaspora except Coptic and some Islamic groups are passive most of the time because of the political home culture; despite that fact, the diaspora became active for a short time because of the Egyptian revolution. Future research should exam those aspects to better understand the mechanism of building an Egyptian lobby to work continuously and effectively on Egyptian interests in the United States. The diaspora and policymakers may use the study results to help improve the role of this diaspora to impose positive social changes in Egypt and the future political engagement of Egyptian younger generations.

The Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) established under the World Trade Organisation, is one of the most notable achievements of the multilateral trading system. African countries need to engage more in this emerging system to defend their trade and economic interests, especially in this time of increasing integration in the world trading system. It is submitted that the weak participation of African countries in the DSU can have negative economic and trade implications on Africa, as it minimises the influence these countries could exert on the development of the DSU legal system at this stage of particular importance to the evolution of international trade law in addition to its direct economic and trade costs. All complaints about impediments in the DSU cannot be rightly claimed to be the core reasons for weak African participation in the system, as the system still stand out as a rule-based with equal treatment to Developed and Developing countries. Additionally, the low participation of African countries cannot be justified by the degree of development basis only, as other developing counties have been very successful in this regard and some African countries managed to make use of the system in a very positive way. Moreover, this dissertation states that the effect of other internal constraints that are reported to hinder African participation, such as lack of sufficient financial resources, limited technical expertise and political factors, could be minimised through joint African cooperation, and by developing national strategies to deal with DSU. Egypt is a good example in this regard; despite its limited financial and technical expertise, it managed to gain accumulated experience through its various forms of engaging in the DSU, and consequently managed to defend its trade and economic interests. The establishment of a national organisational framework to deal with the DSU assisted in the preparation of national expertise that is gaining increasing experience. Egypt’s incorporation of national legislations on Anti-Dumping, Investment Protection, Intellectual Property Rights and other WTO agreements definitely supports the Egyptian position in the DSU. African countries are called to work within the African Union and on the national levels to make the best use of the system to serve their developmental goals. National strategies should be formulated regarding WTO dispute settlement engagement. These should include sound legislations and clear rules of engagement between different departments and the private sector to enable African countries to overcome the major constraints currently limiting their participation. African countries can depend partially on the support system offered by organisations like ACWL, UNCTAD and pro bone assistance from international law firms and NGO’s to overcome the financial and lack of experience constraints. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Public Law / unrestricted

The M.A. thesis deals with the influence of Aegean textile patterns on the decoration of 18th dynasty Egyptian tombs. It attempts to provide answers to the question of a possible reconstruction of relations between the Aegean area and Egypt on the basis of this phenomenon. The first part of the thesis places textile into a broader context, dealing among others with its importance for both cultural areas and the technology of its fabrication. The second part of the thesis focuses in greater detail upon the occurrence of Aegean textile patterns in the New Kingdom, concentrating upon the tombs and the men that used these motives in their tomb decoration. The evaluation of the biographies, titles and the tombs indicates that a ceiling with Aegean textile patterns served as an element of legitimization for both the king and his officials. In the final part of the thesis I was able to establish the incorporation of the symbolic function of the Aegean textile patterns into the concept of kingship. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of Political Studies Department of International Relations Master's Thesis 2018 Sarah Ahmed CHARLES UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Institute of Political Studies Department of International Relations The Activity of Organizations Supporting Civil Society in the Middle East: The Cases of Egypt and Turkey Master's thesis Author: Sarah Ahmed Study programme: International Relations Supervisor: PhDr. Jan Hornát, Ph.D. Year of the defence: 2018 Declaration 1. I hereby declare that I have compiled this thesis using the listed literature and resources only. 2. I hereby declare that my thesis has not been used to gain any other academic title. 3. I fully agree to my work being used for study and scientific purposes. In Prague on 31.07.2018 Sarah Ahmed References AHMED, Sarah. The Activity of Organizations Supporting Civil Society in the Middle East. Praha, 2018. 106 pages. Master's thesis (Mgr.). Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of International Relations. Department of International Relations. Supervisor PhDr. Jan Hornát, Ph.D. Length of the thesis: 198,979 Characters. Abstract First, this thesis will be focused on democracy promotion and civil society as concepts that emerged and occupied a large scholarly literature. I deem...

In this chapter, I show that the Sortes Astrampsychi and related lot and ticket oracles from Graeco-Roman Egypt quite frequently allude to legal issues or concrete acts of judicial life. I conclude that people asked oracles for help in legal matters, or, put differently, that the oracles formed part of the Egyptian system(s) of justice. I place this aspect of the Sortes Astrampsychi in context by discussing a selection of text types such as oracles, temple oaths, and amulet decrees dating back as far as the New Kingdom (1550 BCE) and argue that we need to interpret these texts in two ways: as texts of ritual practices and as texts of Egyptian/Ptolemaic/Roman Imperial law. I present case studies from ritual texts of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt in Greek and Demotic where practitioners, mainly qualified temple personnel, acted as intermediates between humans and gods to find solutions in certain legal matters.

Ammianus Marcellinus Bemerkungen über Orakelpraktiken im Bes-Tempel von Abydos werden als Ausgang für diese Studie gewählt. In RG 19, 12, 3-16 erfahren wir, dass das nicht beschiedene Exemplar eines Ticket-Orakels im Tempelarchiv verblieb, um anschließend auf mögliche kaiser- und „staats“-feindliche Inhalte kontrolliert zu werden. Darunter fällt u.a. die seit 11. n. Chr. verbotene Frage nach dem Todeszeitpunkt des Kaisers. Diese Aussage soll anhand der vorhandenen Orakelfragen aus Ägypten überprüft und das in der Datenbank vorhandene Quellenmaterial zu Religion, Ritualtexten, Magie und Divination / Mantik vorgestellt werden. Besondere Berücksichtigung erfährt hierbei die Frage, ob genuin pagane Rituale in frühchristlicher Zeit statistisch gesehen eine Wandlung erfahren.

Religion och film är ett ämne som fångat mångas intresse, inte minst de som önskar veta huruvida film är ett lämpligt medium för religion och för de som önskar använda filmer i sin religionsundervisning. Denna undersökning kom till för att ge svar på några sådana funderingar genom att undersöka hur två filmatiseringar, Prince of Egypt och Exodus Gods and Kings, skiljer sig från ursprungsberättelsen kring Exodus som finns i andra Moseboken. För att göra detta togs tre frågeställningar fram; om det finns skillnader mellan filmateringarna och grundhistorien och hur dessa i så fall yttrar sig, hur dessa eventuella skillnader påverkar berättelsens framställning samt huruvida filmatiseringarna kan användas i ett undervisningssammanhang. Undersökningen gjordes genom att använda en komparativ metod för att jämföra utvalda scener ur berättelsen med deras motsvarighet i filmatiseringarna och undersöka aspekter så som tidshantering, karaktärer och vilken typ av text de bedöms vara utifrån några förvalda kriterier. Resultatet visade att det finns stora skillnader i tidshanteringen i de utvalda scenerna och att många karaktärer fick en marginell roll som inte uppfyllde samma syfte i filmatiseringarna som de gjorde i den ursprungliga historien. Det gick också att utröna att filmatiseringarna främst var berättande snarare än beskrivande och alltså inte hade återberättande som sitt huvudsakliga syfte utan snarare underhållning. Baserat på dessa resultat kunde slutsatsen dras att det finns ett flertal olika skillnader mellan filmatiseringarna och ursprungshistorien och att dessa påverkar berättelsens framställning i hög grad. Hur framställningen påverkas av dessa ändringar hade behövt undersökas ytterligare. Det gick även att dra slutsatsen att de inte är lämpliga att använda i ett undervisningssammanhang utan att göra eleverna medvetna om de skillnader som finns och föra en diskussion kring dem, vilket är högst tidskrävande.