No description available.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1965 M21 / Master of Science

Research submitted to the faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations, 2017 / Since the emergence of the global economic crisis the European Union has been confronted with many challenges. The European vision of stability, growth, prosperity and economic convergence is at stake as the mechanisms of European integration have been revolving around the influential theories of supranationalism and intergovernmentalism. Due to the economic crisis, European integration has turned out to be of interest in Europe therefore, an empirical analysis is important to identify the setbacks on collective action. A research method has been applied to present systematic and explanatory knowledge and track the decisions and resolutions from 2010 – 2015 made by the EU supranational body with respect to the impact this crisis had on the process of European integration. This research examines how effectively the EU responded to the Eurozone crisis, especially under its revised mechanisms outlined in the Lisbon treaty. The research looks at the EU’s decision making mechanisms in view of the crisis. Case specific expectations on the reactions to the Eurozone crisis were examined emphasising the Greek sovereign debt crisis to ascertain the weakness of governance in Greece and in the EU. / XL2018

Note: typewritten ms.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1964 C28 / Master of Science

No description available.

This thesis explores the meaning of "youth" and the political mobilisation of young people in key moments of crisis in Europe. Between 2005 and 2011, youth became critical for the consolidation of the authoritarian regime structures in Russia. I show that this process included the restructuring of the discourse about youth, the physical mobilisation of young people, and the isolation of oppositional youth. How valid are these findings for regime crises more generally? I answer this question through an analysis of the breakdown of the authoritarian Soviet Union during perestroika, the breakdown of unconsolidated democracy during the last years of the Weimar Republic, and the crisis of the democratic regime in France around 1968. The cross-regional and cross-temporal comparison of these episodes demonstrates that regimes lacking popular democratic support compensate for their insufficient legitimacy by trying to mobilise youth symbolically and politically. By developing a new method of textual analysis which combines qualitative content analysis and network analysis, the thesis offers a novel social science perspective on the meaning of youth in the four cases. My study shows how discursive structures about youth condition the possibility of political mobilisation of young people. The thesis makes three contributions to comparative politics. First, on an empirical level, my study offers new insights into social movements at moments of regime crisis in different political settings. Second, on a conceptual level, I refine our understanding of the symbolic significance of the terms "youth" and "generation" in moments when society is reorienting itself. I also examine the significance of "crisis" and argue that the term expresses openness and the possibility to remake the past and future. Third, on a methodological level, my thesis builds on the growing interest in textual analysis by developing a novel multi-level approach in three linguistic contexts, which offers insights into the structure of public discourse and the actors involved.

The thesis begins with a short section on the nature of neutrality in Europe in the 1930s, and briefly introduces the political circumstances of the six nations that remained neutral throughout the war. The primary subject of the paper deals with the relationship between the belligerents and the neutral states, especially the extent to which military strength and preparedness was responsible for the latter maintaining their neutrality.

Due to their desire for a strong Central European nation to counterbalance France and Russia and their belief that any people should have the right to unification, the British supported the German nationalist movement after 1866. Due to French meddling in the affairs of other countries and French opposition to what the British thought was the legitimate aim of the German people, the British became anti-French in the late 1860s. Due to the belief of the British in progress, they could view most of the events on the Continent, even the violent ones, as the gradual advancement of civilization. The Franco-Prussian War required the British to re-evaluate all of these views, as well as many others, and conclude that Germany, not France, constituted the threat to Europe.

No description available.