This study consisted of qualitative interviews with six Afghan political leaders who served as cabinet members in the Afghan government prior to the Soviet invasion. The study sought to report the political conditions in Afghanistan based on the direct experiences and the reflections of these leaders whose titles and names remain anonymous.The data were collected and analyzed using a modified version of Spradley's Developmental Research Sequence Writing methodology. The data included field notes gathered from numerous interviews, casual conversations, tape recording, library research and documents provided by the informants.The rivalries that prevented political unity during the war of resistance have exacerbated the quest for power now that the common enemy, the Soviet Union and Afghan-Marxist regimes, has disappeared from the scene. No credible social or political within the country to initiate and promote political reconciliation. Each group appears to be attempting a unilateral solution to the national crisis. The great majority of Afghans are not only left out of the political process, but are also held hostage to the confrontation between competing groups whose political and military strategies is the elimination, or at best exclusion, of other competing groups. Dangerously, none of the powerful group's adversaries has given up the idea of war as the institution or nationally acceptable leadership is available instrument of political settlement. Among political leaders there is still much in Afghan political culture that is basically hostile to open and competitive politics. / Department of Educational Leadership

This study examines the lobbying by the Japanese automobile industry in the European Union. It investigates how the Japanese automobile industry interacts with the decision-making authorities in Brussels in its attempts to influence the policy process of the European Union. In the post-war period the Japanese automobile industry has expanded into all major world markets and plays an important economic and political role in these. However, until the 1990s, the Japanese automobile industry enjoyed hardly any interaction with the policy making institutions of the European Union. This has changed dramatically in the last decade but, thus far, the process has not been subject to any empirical investigation. This study, which is largely based upon interviews with the major actors in the process of interaction between the governing institutions and the automobile industry in the EU, aims to correct this deficiency. This thesis employed the policy network concept as a framework to develop an understanding of this particular case of government-interest group interaction. The thesis investigated whether the Western concept of policy networks could successfully be applied to the Japanese automobile industry as a non-western actor in the unique system of governance of the EU. By doing so, the thesis has demonstrated that the policy network concept is not a purely Western construct, but can be applied with equal validity to the case of Japan. Therefore, this thesis has taken an importani. a step towards proving the universal applicability of the policy network concept.

The study attempts to determine the extent to which Arab nationalism, as expressed in the writings of Michel Aflaq, may be considered truly secular. The analysis of Aflaq's published essays and speeches focuses upon his treatment of religion in general and of Islam in particular. In order to present a valid analysis of his writlngs, the origins of Aflaq's thinking are traced to the experiences and influences he underwent. It is shown that, although Aflaq uses religious terms and concepts, he deprives them of all supra-human implications. Thus, the particularism engendered by different religious modes of worshlp loses much of its significance. Since Islam is, for Aflaq, the greatest expression of Arabism at its partlcular time, therefore, all Arabs, including Christians, can find themselves only through Islam. Arab nationalism, as expressed by Michel Aflaq, is secular only to the extent of subsuming Islam wlthin Arabism while resurrecting the philosophical and ethical principles of Islam suitable to the present time. For Aflaq, the principles suitable to the present lie in freedom, unity, and socialism.

The dissertation documents the rise of African Christian theology in anglophone and francophone Africa, exploring the possibility that following the development of the two long-recognized phases of "adaptation" and "incarnation" there has been a "third phase." In the period since 1980 we find an explosion into theological diversity and maturity, marked by serious wrestling with all the social problems facing Africans in contemporary African life. Since 1980 there is a proliferation of new Christological paradigms, and increased inter-religious tensions have brought new urgency to inter-faith dialogue, with a growing number of theological responses. An explosion in the numbers of African women theologians brings a new voice on women's roles. Economic and ecological crises bring increasing reflexion on justice, peace and the integrity of creation. / The paradigmatic diversity is strongly linked with changes in the concrete social conditions in which the various theologians live. This discovery confirms the thesis that theology in Africa is always related to social context.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chicago, 1997. / Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Leipzig, 2000. / Issued also in print.

在30年代主流文化界和知識界繼續熱誠地、全然地追求現代性時，一些現代傾向（modernist）的文化知識份子在電影和其他媒體中更多元地實踐着五四時期菁英知識份子的"全盤反傳統主義"(Totalistic Antitraditionalism)，他們將這種熱情訴諸于積極塑造以新興的知識女性為代表的中國"新女性"身上。 然而，在對電影這樣新興舶來品的媒介使用和對西方一些基本"電影語言"（cinematography）的效仿中，某些源于儒家的中國核心傳統價值和審美觀念，被有意識或無意識地挪用到電影人物形塑和審美韻味的建構中。這樣，不僅傳統經典的"儒家閨秀"藉着當代知識女性的新身份被重新包裝和再現，一些極具中國美學特色的電影處理技巧也在其中雛形漸現。更重要地，傳統閨秀的美學特點解釋了新的受教育女性謂之"新"的原由。本文（1）將從"美德"這一概念的傳承和模糊性入手，追溯禮教、道德之于傳統人物建構的意義和時代困境；（2）通過淺論閨秀人物與儒家美學思想的關係，以梳理多重道德審美的層次，並提煉"節"、"止"、 "制"的傳統美學建構機理；（3）通過提煉的這套可以參照施行的電影分析途徑，分析相關電影並蒐集分析證據；（4）借用銀幕內外的實踐策略來梳理和回應"傳統與現代"不同層次的矛盾衝突、協作重構，最後不僅可以進一步探究以30年代電影人為代表的人物思想矛盾，還可以辨析中國現代性的駁雜深刻之處。 In the 1930s when dominant intellectuals were cordially and overtly aspiring over modernity, a bunch of modernist intellectuals diversely practiced Totalistic Antitraditionalism inherited from MFM (May Fourth Movement) elite, on silver screen and other media. The educated women are both mediated representatives of Chinese "new" women and bearers of modernists' passion and dreams. Nevertheless, while accessing the film (as exotic and "new" medium then) and imitating western cinematography, some traditional core values and aesthetic ideologies rooted in Confucianism are consciously or unconsciously appropriated in constructing characteristic and auratic aesthetics on silver screen. Hence, not only the classic Confucian guixiu has been repacked and represented with new identity as contemporary educated women, but also some Chinese aesthetical patterns have emerged in film. More importantly, the aesthetics embedded in classic guixiu explain why new educated women are representatives of the "new". This paper (1) starts with the inheritance and ambiguity of the concept "meide (virtue)", before deploying how conventional Li (rites) and Daode (moral) contribute to both constructive significance and chronic dilemma of characters. (2) By virtue of analyzing classic guixiu and Confucius aesthetics, it is further enacted how moral aesthetics are enriched with multiple layers. Moreover, a type of constructive mechanism related to abridge (jie), stop (zhi) and restraint (zhi) is generalized. (3) Then, it deduced some framework that could be approached to filmic analysis as well as collecting data. (4) Lastly, the question about "traditional and modern" will be echoed with on and off screen strategic practices, in terms of contradiction, conflict, collaboration and reconstitution on different levels. Thus, not only the rooted dilemma in the 1930s could be revealed by means of analyzing contradictions of filmic people, but also the hybridity, heterogeneous and profundity of Chinese modernity could be further indicated.

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From Introduction: The reIationship between technology and art today is a logical extension of a collaborative tradition with ancient roots. The artist has always been a principal perpetrator of technological innovation. He, through the natural progression of technical means, has virtually evolved each new art form. There are many examples such as the 'lost wax' casting process, Jan Van Eycks oil paint innovations, Senefelders 'chemical printing' and Niecephore Niepce's first eight hour photographic exposures. Even woodblocks were in their time an innovation. All art uses technology of a kind and artists who prefer to remain aloof from it are in fact merely using technologies absorbed in older traditional media further back in the history of art. It is the flexibility of art to adapt to changing conditions of the world today which has spurred change and brought about a new dynamism in the graphic arts. The present intensity of interest in the print can be directly attributed to the advancement of technology and communication in this century. A whole new field of materials, methods and techniques are now available to the venturesome graphic artist and printmaker. Along with the contemporary technology dedication to expression leads naturally to innovation in aesthetics.