Both academics and the makers of public policy have for a long time been interested in the study of urban politics, but the subject needs to be integrated with the process of urban growth and development. Too frequently, the urban polity is analyzed as an arena which passively reflects or mechanically responds to more fundamental changes in the urban social structure. In this work, case studies of political reform in Philadelphia at two periods, 1800 to 1854 and 1890 to 1915, develop a number of hypotheses about how the urban polity plays an influential role in shaping the process of urban growth and change. Both case studies begin with computer-assisted analyses of changes in the socio-economic and spatial structures of urban society. Such changes are often considered to be fundamental causes of urban political reform either because they altered political elites' interests in municipal government or because they created enormous new demands on existing municipal works and services. The studies show, however, that social structural changes cannot by themselves explain the course of urban political development in the city of Philadelphia. Concentrating primarily on the formulation and implementation of municipal public works, the studies show that in both periods, the course of political reform was often shaped by two things: the 'private' or selfish interests of political actors, and the fragmented financial, administrative and party structures of the urban polity. More important, the studies show how self-interested political activities, in a polity in which authority was highly fragmented, often had consequences which were far reaching in their impact on the structure and experience of urban life. Indeed, the first case study shows how urban politics shaped the process of social group formation in the industrializing city. The second case study shows how the structure and conduct of urban politics determined social groups' political power in the city. The conclusion then demonstrates how the case studies support a number of hypotheses about the relationship between urban politics and urban society which may be applied generally to analyses of the process of urban growth and change.

This thesis analyses rural social and political conflict in the province of Badajoz (Extremadura) during the Spanish Second Republic of 1931 to 1936. It takes a broad approach to social and political change in a province typical of southern Spain, but focusses particularly on the under-explored role of powerful agrarian elites opposed to the reforms introduced by the new liberal-democratic regime. The study begins with two complementary chapters covering the period 1870-1930; they consider the evolution of the autocratic rural order presided over by the elite and discuss the growth of the challenge to agrian power from organised rural labour. In the following chapters covering in detail the period 1931 to 1936 the partial transformat ion of the rural order that accompanied the transition to the Republic, the subsequent processes of social and political struggle, and the polarisation that followed are documented. A final epilogue considers the Civil War as a rural counter-revolution that involved the resurgence of agrarian autocracy in Badajoz. The thesis draws on a wide range of primary materials, from archives and printed sources to memoirs, and utilizes the relevant secondary literature. In general the study forms part of a movement to reach a deeper understanding of social and political change during the Republic and in particular offers new perspectives on the contribution of the 'agrarian question' to the breakdown of the regime and the origins of the Civil War.

This thesis seeks to examine the increasing importance of national issues and popular consciousness in the politics of the county of Kent during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Excise and Jew Bill crises indicate that public opinion and extra-parliamentary protest were by no means dormant under the early Hanove.rians, but without effective leadership either at Westminster or in the provinces, without a coherent ideological basis, and without the encouragement of a well-oiled propaganda machine, reaction to national events tended to be unco-ordinated and short-lived. Not until after 1768, when men like Wilkes, Wyvill and John Reeves began to organise popular agitation, when Burke, Paine and Gartwright gave shape to conservative and radical ideas, and when better transport and the development of the press facilitated the easy diffusion of news and comment, did a new complexion come across the face of English affairs. Clearly defined issues also appeared on the politidal stage and quickly cultivated a high level of public debate. Between 1768 and 1783 the Middlesex election dispute and the American War focused the attention of Kent's urban freemen and landed classes on calls for parliamentary and economical reform, and ensured that the county was in the van of those who joined Yorkshire in its campaign of lobbying and petitioning. After 1784 reform was eclipsed, first by the all-embracing struggle among the partisans of Pitt and Fox, and then by the dark menace of Jacobin and Napoleonic France, but in the context of public awareness and participation, the fall of the Coalition and the Regency crisis, together with the formation of Reevite committees, corresponding societies and the Volunteers, gave these turbulent decades a lasting significance. The return to peace in 1815 brought fresh problems for Kentish gentlemen and labourers alike and acted as a spur to renewed agitation out-of-doors. When, however, ministers, and the House of Commons proved deaf to the pleas of a distressed nation, and even went so far as to violate the much acclaimed Protestant Ascendancy, constitutional change seemed the only remaining remedy and by 1832 concerted popular enthusiasm had carried the Reform Bill over every obstacle thrown in its path.

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Córdoba and Jerez de la Frontera are situated in the north-eastern and south-western corners of the triangular delta of the Guadalquivir. They were reconquered and resettled by the Castilian Crown in the thirteenth century. During the period in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which saw widespread alienation of lands by the Crown to nobles, to form lordships or señoríos, Córdoba and Jerez remained subject directly to the kings of Castile. Each town was governed by a council, consisting of jurados, who represented the individual parishes, and regidores, who from the fourteenth century formed a ruling oligarchy. The problem of proliferation of offices, beyond the legal number of twenty-four on both councils, faced the Catholic Monarchs at the beginning of their reign. Action was taken, particularly in Córdoba, where the situation was more extreme, to control office resignations and appointments, but officers continued to come from a small number of noble families. By their original charters (fueros), these towns also had magistrates, known as alcaldes mayores who represented the king in local affairs, but, from the early fifteenth century, new officials, known as corregidores, were superimposed on the old structure. These were appointed spasmodically to both towns in the period up to 1474. Town councils owned property on behalf of the Crown, consisting of buildings and grazing and arable lands. They also ruled outlying areas on behalf of the Crown which normally channelled its communications with these lesser towns and villages through the council of their chief town. The local councils also collected some royal taxes for their own use, though most were raised by the royal tax collector. Royal finances saw a spectacular improvement under Ferdinand and Isabella, but they continued to be weakened by the alienation of many revenues, in juro, for life or in perpetuity, to individuals, especially the territorial magnates of the kingdoms of Seville and Córdoba. This meant that it was possible for a magnate such as the duke of Medina Sidonia to gain an income comparable to that received by the Crown from the taxation of towns such as Córdoba and Jerez. The economy of western Andalusia was almost entirely agricultural. Most crops were produced for subsistence but grain and wine were exported from Jerez and district and wool from the Córdoba area. This wool was denied to the local cloth industry and exported from Seville by merchants from Burgos who came to Córdoba each year to buy owners' complete wool-crops in advance. The upper echelons of Córdoba society were heavily involved in this trade. The exploitation of tunny, which was the other main export commodity of the region, was in the hands of the upper nobility, particularly the dukes of Medina Sidonia and the counts of Arcos. The balance between the economic resources of the greatest magnates and the royal towns, such as Córdoba and Jerez, was also reflected in military affairs. The forces fielded in the Granada campaigns of 1482-92 show the strength in cavalry of the nobles to have been equal to that of royal towns, though the latter provided many more foot-soldiers. In political terms the problem which confronted Ferdinand and Isabella in their efforts to retain control over Córdoba and Jerez was to keep the local councils free of noble interference. This might be exercised through marriage alliances and links of feudal vassallage. The Catholic Monarchs in some respects pursued firm measures in order to reduce the power of the small number of magnates who had virtually gained complete control of the royal towns - the duke of Medina Sidonia in Seville, the marquis of Cádiz in Jerez and Don Alonso de Aguilar in Córdoba. These nobles retained their offices after Ferdinand and Isabella's visit to the region in 1477-8, but they were not allowed to exercise them. However, the fact that they still had a residual right to interfere in the government of royal towns posed a threat for the future. During the period between 1478 and 1500, corregidores succeeded one another peacefully as royal agents in contiol of Córdoba and Jerez, appointing their own officials and working in conjunction with the regidor. There were still noblemen from the twenty or so leading families of the kingdoms of Seville and Córdoba, but the most powerful figures were absent. However, after 1500 there was a resurgence of upper noble influence in Córdoba and Jerez. In the foriaer town, the marquis of Priego, son of Don Alonso de Aguilar, succeeded his father as alcalde mayor of Córdoba. Shortly before Isabella's death, in November 1504, the marquis appeared for the first time in a council-meeting. This action followed a period of severe grain-shortage which had begun in 1502 and continued until 1508. During this period, Córdoba council became indebted to nobles, including the marquis of Priego, for grain supplies from their señoríos, while these lasted, and for loans for the purchase and transport of foreign grain thereafter. Three episodes occurred in quick succession, between 1506 and 1508, in which the marquis of Priego and the count of Cabra took control of Córdoba as magistrates. The first two were caused by hitches in the re-appointment of corregidores, but in the third, the marquis crossed the border into revolt, imprisoning the king's alcalde. Ferdinand quelled the revolt by means of a military expedition which he conananded himself. The marquis and his henchmen, including rnany members of Córdoba council, were banished. Similarly severe action was taken by Ferdinand at this time to prevent the proposed marriage alliance between two of the leading Andalusian noble families, the Guzmán and the Girón. However, despite apparent royal severity towards the pretensions of leading nobles to return to their previous dominance in the area, illustrated by the Crown's successful exploitation of inheritance crises in the Ponce and Guzmán families in 1492 and 1502 to regain control of Cádiz and Gibraltar, respectively, there are distinct signs that in the early sixteenth century the monarchs were content to allow to the upper nobility a position in local society raore appropriate to their great wealth and traditional influence. Magnates returned to the governorship of royal fortresses, despite the protests of Córdoba council. The marquis and his henchmen were restored to this council in 1510 and even the armed invasion of Córdoba's town of Hornachuelos by the count of neighbouring Palma was tolerated. On the other side, it should be noted that the second attempt at a Guzmán - Girón marriage, in 1513, was thwarted by the Crown. The royal towns of western Andalusia, if Córdoba and Jerez may be taken as typical examples, emerged from the combined reigns of the Catholic Honarchs firmly in the grip of small ruling oligarchies, secure in the possession of effectively hereditary offices as regidores. Some of these office-holders were members of the wealthiest families in the region, others were not, but all had similar economic and political interests. The overall characteristics of society in this region in 1516 was immobility. No new families joined the ranks of the upper nobility in the kingdoms of Seville and Cordoba after 1492 and those already in a strong position found their wealth increased. However, this wealth showed itself in exploitation of the land and investment in government funds (juros) rather than trading activity. The leaders of Andalusian society at the beginning of the modern age were unenterprising and backward-looking, but their permanence had been guaranteed by the work of Ferdinand and Isabella.

The object of this thesis is to explain why Pakistan which Muslim nationalist historians claim was created in the name of Islam failed to sustain a democratic political system. This question is explored by examining the politics of South Asian Muslims as a continuity from the colonial to the post-partition period, focusing on the tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces. The thesis begins by investigating the factors which helped politicize Muslim identity during the inter-war years. The interplay of nationalism, constitutional reforms and common identity based on confessional faith forged political identities which determined the course of subsequent events. Dyarchy set in motion processes which the Government of India Act of 1935 reinforced,- the emergence of political solidarities based on religion and region and alienation from nationalist politics. The Congress was able to neutralize the centrifugal developments among its Hindu constituency. It was not so successful among Muslims partly due to the impact of the Reforms and partly due to the activity of Hindu revivalists in the party. Simultaneously Muslim politics was moving away from the Congress, not towards the Muslim League but to the All-India Muslim Conference, around which most Muslims had gathered in opposition to the Nehru Report. However most regional and communitarian parties were not simply antagonistic to the Congress. They rejected centralist politics as a whole. This was amply demonstrated by the 1937 election results which underlined Jinnah's irrelevance to Muslim politics. Hence Muslims were in their political loyalties divided between strong currents focused on provincial interests and weak ones emphasizing sub-continental unity, national or Muslim. This configuration, the opposition between centrifugal and centripetal forces defined the basic parameters of Muslim politics. The second chapter describes how the political divisions between Muslims was partially overcome. The 1937 elections initiated a major political shift among the Muslim regional parties and caused great unease among the urban groupings. The Muslim regional partie's feared that the Congress Party's control over provincial ministries through a centralized structure and its rejection of the federal basis of the 1935 Act, would lead to their being roped into a Hindu-dominated unitary state. To fight this threat, an alternative political focus at the all-India level came to be considered necessary for the protection of their interests. The Muslim League's revival was indirectly facilitated by the Quit India Movement which temporarily removed the Congress from the arena of open politics and by the encouragement Jinnah received from the Raj. The League was able to gradually pull Muslim groups, particularly those in the Muslim-minority provinces, into its ranks through the use of anti-Congress propaganda. But among the urban masses of UP Jinnah was eclipsed by Mashriqi until the mid-1940s when the Khaksars became a spent force. This development combined with the increasing influence of the Pakistan slogan, vague yet immensely attractive, provided the ideological cutting edge of the League's agenda for Muslim unity. The ideological hegemony allowed the League to focus the forces of community consciousness as a battering ram to breakdown the regional parties resistance. The Pakistan slogan spread from the urban areas and Muslim-minority provinces into the rural areas of the Muslim-majority provinces. But in Bengal the regionalist had taken over the party, in the Punjab Khizr continued to resist and in the NWFP and Sind the Muslim League was a peripheral influence. Hence by the mid-1940s the League was only able to achieve partial unity under the Pakistan banner. The third chapter deals with the brief moment of political unity achieved through the combined impact of mass nationalism and communal riots. After the constitutional deadlock following the breakdown of the Simla Conference the League was able to make major advances by positing a clear choice between their and the Congress's plans for India's future. Muslim nationalism now centred on the League capitalized on the political uncertainties caused by the negotiations and won over many adherents from the provincial parties. An important factor which widened the League's area of influence was the increased significance of economic nationalism. It opened channels of communication between the elites and the masses, drew in groups previously unaffected by the Muslim League and turned the agitation for Pakistan into a mass movement. These factors combined with the weakness of the Congress due to their incarceration during the war resulted in the widespread shift away from the regional parties to the Muslim League. Jinnah was able to achieve for a brief moment political unity and used this as the basis to extract the maximum constitutional concessions from the British and the Congress. However the centralization process was weak and its frailty was at the root of ideological confusion. The confusion was manifest in the changing definition of Pakistan in this crucial period. The problem was compounded by the League's lack of strong party structure to control and enforce discipline over the regional supporters. Jinnah's interventions in the provinces were the exception and not the rule and limited to disciplining local leaders. For expanding the party's influence he was completely dependent on the provincial leaders. The regionalist forces were not genuine converts to Muslim nationalism. They used the League as a stalking horse for their provincial interests. Jinnah accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan due to the strong pressures from the Muslim-majority provinces who were not interested in a separate homeland for Muslims and later he supported Suhrawardy's attempt to avoid partition of Bengal. Jinnah had to be responsive to these different currents within the party in order to avoid a revolt against his leadership. Besides the internal pressure, pro-Congress opposition was still strong in Sarhad and Sind and they used regional ethnicity as a counter against the League. However the opposition collapsed when the civil disobedience movement mounted by the League at this extremely tense moment triggered off the communal explosion which engulfed northern India and as a result the Congress accepted partition. The fourth chapter deals with the Muslim League's effort to consolidate its position in Pakistan through the construction of a strong state and the potent anti-centre backlash it produced. Pakistan came into existence through the contingent circumstances attending the transfer of power and the League's leadership was ill-prepared to establishing itself in Pakistan. The perceived threat from India and the internal opposition to the leadership convinced them that the country and they themselves could survive politically only if a strong centre was established. However the ethnic composition of the ruling group was a source of tension which bedeviled the centralizing process. The Muslim League leadership was mainly Muhajirs who had no social base in Pakistan. They along with the Punjabis also dominated the military and the bureaucracy. Hence the push for a unitary structure alienated others such as the Bengalis, who were not represented in the upper echelons of the state. The political instability was aggravated by the ruling group's efforts to establish a strong centre not on the basis of a broad consensus but through strong arm tactics. As a result internal and external opposition to the League leadership was suppressed in an authoritarian manner. Karachi used the state apparatus to crush the emerging opposition and interfered in the provinces attempting to put its supporters into power.

This dissertation examines Muslim politics in the North-West Frontier Province of India between 1937 and 1947. It first investigates the nature of modern politics in the Frontier Province and its relationship with all-India politics. The N-WFP was the only Muslim majority province which supported the INC in its struggle to represent an Indian nation against the British raj, rather than of joining other Muslims in the AIML. The N-WFP had its own peculiar type of society, distinct from the rest of India. In the Frontier Province, Islam wa? iaierwoven to such an extent with Pashtoon society that it formed an essential and integral part of it; and the Pashtoons 1 sense of separate ethnic identity, within the bounds and framework of Islam, become an acknowledged fact. In this Muslim majority province, there was no fear of Hindu domination, as was prevalent among Muslims in Hindu majority provinces. This was a principal reason for the initial failure of ML to acquire support in the FP. The study also explores the rise of the Khudai Khidmatgars and the reasons for the preference of majority of the N-WFP Muslims for Congress. It argues that the coming together of the KKs and the Congress gave the former popularity, and an ally in all-India politics and the latter a significant base of support in a Muslim majority province. It elucidates the changing political contexts of the period 1937-47 and shows how loyalties were contingent on these circumstances. It is therefore not just about Frontier politics, but, at a deeper level, about the nature of evolving political identities in the sub-continent. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the All-India National Congress 'desertion' of the Frontier people on the eve of partition, the dismissal of the provincial Congress ministry by Jinnah, and the deeply ambiguous positions of the KKs in the context of the new nation of Pakistan.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1993 / Pacific Islands Studies

This thesis presents a comparative and interdisciplinary investigation into the relationship between politics and the Turkish and Kurdish novels, which are treated not only as artistic constructions but also as socio-cultural and historical artefacts. The primary objective of this investigation is to understand the principle social, political, and historical reasons and root causes behind the close relationship between politics and literatures in Turkey and the principle socio-political and literary ramifications of such strong relationship. Towards this end, the thesis focuses on four main themes: language, love, religion, and history. Besides being the most common novelistic themes in the Turkish and Kurdish literary institutions, these are inherently heavily politicised and ethno-nationalistically charged themes - thus especially suitable for such inquiry. In line with this politico-historical and literary vein, the thesis also discusses some of the main political questions in Turkey, viz., the reasons behind the failure of Turkish democracy, its maladies and the resultant deadlock on some of the most important issues of the modern history of the country such as the Kurdish imbroglio and the conflict of secularisation and Islam. As the discussions on politics of love, language, religion, and history show, profound ideological competitions and antagonisms do not necessarily mean divergent political and literary structures. As such, the strong links between the Turkish and Kurdish literary institutions, as well as the ordeal of the Kurdish question and democratisation in Turkey, is as much caused by rival nationalisms, hostile ideological positions, and the like as by congruity, parallel political visions, and similar power structures. The main argument of the thesis, thus, is that the Kurdish and Turkish literary, political, and intellectual actors could not contribute towards the solution of the persistent political and literary questions in Turkey because of their failure in adopting a transformative politics and developing fully autonomous literatures. The future of the two literatures, as was in the past, this thesis argues, will remain intrinsically bound to the political structures and developments and the future of democracy in Turkey.

In this study, the Babylonian Exile of the Jews is approached from the perspective of a sociological analysis of more recent historical cases of mass deportation and refugee behaviour. After this survey, four behaviour patterns are isolated that function as 'Mechanisms for Survival' for minorities in crisis and under domination in a foreign environment. These 'Mechanisms' include 1) Structural adaptation, 2) The rise of, and conflict between, new leaders. 35 new Folklore patterns, especially 'Hero' stories, and 4) adoption or elaboration of ritual as a means of boundary maintenance and identity preservation. These four mechanisms are then illustrated from Exilic texts of the Old Testament. The rise of Elders and the changing nature of the Bet Abot is seen as structural adaptation. The conflict of Jeremiah and Hananiah, and the advice of Jeremiah in his 'letter', is seen as the conflict of new leaders in crisis. The 'Diaspora Novella' is compared to Messianic expectation and especially to Suffering Servant to show how folklore can reflect social conditions and serve a function as 'hero stories'. Finally, the latest redactional layers of 'P' reveal concern for purity and separation that expressed itself in social isolationism and boundary maintenance, particularly in the dissolution of marriages with foreign wives. There is also a section on social conflict after the restoration, as a measure of the independent development of exilic social ideology and theology. The conclusion is that sociological analysis of the Exilic material reveals the exilic-post-exilic community exhibiting features of a minority group under stress, and the creative means by which that group responds by Mechanisms for Survival.