Tolkien may not have intentionally created his fictive nations to mirror real nations, but his world certainly bears the scars of his experiences of war. The World Wars heightened his fear of losing everything that he loved about his local culture through literal obliteration or assimilation into another culture in the event of England’s losing. Tolkien saw the nation as a social construct that potentially could minimize losses, if not wholly protect local culture from the forces that threatened to destroy it. Yet he also perceived the nation’s limitations in its ability to protect culture. A nation could grow too large for itself, becoming obsessed with consuming other nations. For Tolkien, national property-amassing leads to a loss of the cultural identity that nationhood aims to preserve. When the forces threatening individual nations become overwhelming, those nations often need to join forces to prevent being taken over by other, more powerful countries. An examination of Tolkien’s fiction and numerous other sources, including essays and personal letters, suggests that he felt that separate nations should co-exist without imposing on one another, and that the nation taking over others would lose its own identity, whether gradually or suddenly. Despite Tolkien’s efforts to distance himself from what he felt modernity represented, his fiction (whether consciously or not) grapples with the mid-twentieth century ideological conflicts surrounding the nation. The resulting sense of loss and powerlessness underlies much of Tolkien’s fiction and leads him to a concept of the nation as an imperfect protector of culture, tempered by its need to rely on other nations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect the Nazi threat had on the swedish labour movement between 1932 and 1939 and to enrich what kind of pre-understanding they had about the fall of the Weimar Republic and the upcoming and effects of the Third Reich. Brought by the development in Germany, a debate and struggle took place in the Social Democratic journal Tiden over the meaning of concepts and there ability, in the hands of demagogs, to overthrow democratic structures. The concept of socialism and its concepts attribute play a major part in this investigation. By establishing fields of tension such as - nation vs internationalism, socialism in theory and in practice, political democracy vs evolved democracy and the diverse principles of neutrality, the first principle meaning the defending of national boarders, the other meaning not only defending your own country but taking an active part in defending democracy in the world - I was able to observe the movement and change of concepts within this fields. The result showing that the concept of socialism and near related attributes, in the hands of national socialists had undertaken a wast change of meaning, which applied in the Swedish debate threatened to undermine the power and force of the Social Democrats applied in the political discourse in Sweden. To defend itself and strengthening the Social Democratic hegemony as well as maintaining the goal of evolved democratic expansion, they were forced to win the confidence and votes of the middle class. To do that they had to revise and adapt and to some extent marginalize the socialistic ideology and the concepts attached to the Marxian legacy. Make it fit to the economic and social demands of the time. The understanding of the German development between 1918 and 1939 and the strategy and ideology of the Nazi movement in Tiden is explicit. A main reason for the democratic doom was considered the Treaty of Versailles.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 374-390). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-280).

This paper is an examination of the foreign policy attitudes of Indiana's United States Senators and Representatives during the critical years before the Second World War. My purpose is to determine whether these particular Mid-Westerners were a part of the isolationist bloc in Congress which exerted a significant influence on the formulation of foreign policy. The scope of the study is limited to an elucidation of the individual views as expressed in Congress b the members of the delegation and an analysis of the campaign for re-election waged by each of them as it relates to the broader issue.

This study is the latest in a series done at Ball State Univeristy on the Angell Papers, the entire collection of personal papers and other materials which Sir Norman Angell presented to the school in 1961. The present study focuses on Angell's activities from July 1940 through December 1945 when Angell was in the United States--unofficially representing the British government--to promote Anglo-American friendship and cooperation.When war broke out in 1939, the British government, principally the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Information, immediately recognized the need to promote pro-British sentiments in the United States. But they also recognized the desirability of keeping a "low profile" in deference to American sensitivities and suspicions about the alleged role of British propaganda in the United States entry into World War I. Angell, and other private British citizens with established contacts and reputations in the United States, were thus chosen to conduct a campaign of unofficial propaganda in America. As a tireless lecturer and writer, Angell used every means at his disposal to communicate his basic message: Britain's historic role in preserving United States security.Initially, that message consisted of an unrelenting assault on the isolationist/non-interventionist position. After Pearl Harbor, it increasingly focused on cementing for the postwar era the level of war-enforced Anglo-American cooperation by interpreting to Americans those features of English life most likely to be sources of misunderstandings and resentments: feudal remnants in the political and social structures, the Empire, and Labourite Socialism. Finally, as the war moved into its latter phases, Angell increasingly recognized those of the political Left as constituting a greater threat to postwar Anglo-American cooperation--which he regarded as the sine qua non of an effective collective security system and future peace--than did those of the nationalistisolationist Right. He became especially concerned about the Left's desire to promote socio-economic revolutionary change in the midst of war, even at the expense of maintaining essential wartime unity or postwar stability. He was equally concerned about the Left's attitude toward the USSR, fearing the reappearance of an appeasement policy which would as surely result in still another war as that of the 1930s had.The nature of historical evidence does not permit a conclusive evaluation of Angell's impact on Americans' thinking. But it might be justly said that, operating from a private station, Angell did as much as any one man could to advance the cause of international understanding and peace.

The purpose of this study is to show how the Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet andDagens Nyheter reported on and described Dag Hammarskjöld as a man and a symbolat the time of his death in 1961. The method for the research has been a qualitativethematic analysis of the content in the articles published from the date ofHammarskjöld´s death to the day after the funeral. The study has been based on theoriesabout newspapers roles in the construction of imagined communities, the use of mythsand the objectifying of abstract ideas in news texts.I have found that the investigated newspapers described Dag Hammarskjöld assynonymous with the United Nations, the world peace and a hope for the future. He wasalso described as a link between the present and the past in the Swedish history at thesame time as he was described as a man of the people. He was representing“Swedishness” in an international context and the cosmopolitan. The Swedish peoplewere described as a silent anonymous group mourning a great man and a fellowcountryman.The study shows that Dag Hammarskjöld became a complex figure thatrepresented not only him self but also Swedish qualities and norms.

This thesis is an account of women's international work at the League of Nations. While feminists' shift from the national to the international arena has been noted in studies on the inter-war women's movement, most often it has been interpreted as a reflection of the heightened salience of peace work in the aftermath of the First World War. This is an important observation but it overlooks the fact that women's activities at the League embraced the full spectrum of feminist causes: social reform, women's rights and peace. This thesis gives prominence to inter-war feminist activity played against the backdrop of institutional developments at the League which encouraged women to believe their goals could be advanced under its auspices. One of the major goals of the Women's International Organizations was to establish a political role for women in international affairs. The first chapter describes the efforts of women's organizations to secure the representation of women in the League of Nations. Many recently enfranchised women in Europe and North America identified the League as an institution toward which they should direct their newly won political influence. This is assessed in the context of ideas that emerged in the aftermath of the First World War about the transformation of the international sphere through the infusion of female values. The second, third and fourth chapters present a profile of the women's networks operating in and around the League. The study reveals a high level of interaction between the Women's International Organizations and women in official positions at the League. Chapter 2 examines the aims of the Women's International Organizations and exposes tensions between social feminist and equal rights feminist organizations that led to a struggle for influence at the League. The third and fourth chapters assess the impact of gender-stereotyping on patterns of appointments to the League. However much appointments to Assembly delegations and League advisory committees should have carried with them national allegiances, women delegates were often seen to represent women and this both positively and negatively affected women's participation. The remaining chapters assess women's impact on the development of League activities with particular attention to the implications of the idea that women as women had a special contribution to make at the international level. Chapter 5 explores the extent to which the assertion of difference enhanced women's influence with regard to the League's social and humanitarian work in the 1920s and enabled them to have several gender-specific concerns placed on the agenda. The Depression and the rise of reactionary ideologies influenced feminists to call for more decisive League action on the status of women in the 1930s. Most member states of the League, however, did not view the status of women as a subject for international consideration. Chapter 6 looks at the conflict between social and equal rights feminists over what League initiatives would prove most effective for advancing the status of women and traces developments that ultimately led to the League sponsored Inquiry on the Legal Status of Women in 1937. The seventh chapter assesses the impact of traditional associations between women and peace on women's peace activities at the League. Cultural representations of women as peace-loving had political relevance in the context of League activities and the League attempted to bolster support in the 1930s by intensifying collaboration with women. Significantly, the Women's International Organizations responded by asserting that only with equality would women's influence for peace be fully available. The interplay between equality and difference permeated women's international work at every level and the conclusion evaluates the way in which this tension influenced women's participation in and contribution to the activities of the League of Nations.

The system of states that now covers the planet did not arise out of thin air; rather it was the product of historical forces that gradually coalesced around the state form. But the dynamics of that process no longer obtain. In their place, a new, highly complex amalgam of material and ideational forces is now in the ascendant -- and its arrival has serious implications for traditionally configured, "Westphalian" states. Understood as ("thick") globalization, this interlocking array of political, economic, social and cultural forces challenges the old order at two key points. First, traditional states had "hard shells," by means of which they were capable of consolidating differences between �inside� and �outside� to the point where the latter could more easily be quarantined. Second, for closely related reasons they were largely able to "absorb" domestic society, such that the individual was less a citizen than (s)he was a subject. But these (dubious) capabilities have been severely exposed and eroded, which leads us to ask, "Whither the state under globalization?" My thesis constitutes a sustained attempt to answer this question. The theme is a large one - and I believe that to be adequately treated, large themes require a varied approach. First, in terms of theory this means that I borrow from a significant diversity of recognized �Schools� within the discipline of International Relations. Second, in terms of method I follow a similarly pluralist line. Broadly speaking, the work is interpretive as opposed to explanatory, which is to concede that one cannot be �purely� scientific while standing inside the phenomena one wishes to examine. On the other hand, this forecloses neither the scientific method nor its guiding spirit. With respect to states and the international system, we can still be "scientific realists:" states are real structures whose nature can legitimately be approximated through sciences. In sum, I cleave to a sort of methodological middle ground between science and interpretation, taking from each in the measure that they advance the discussion. Third, in terms of normative intent my chief concern is with the way things are; but as it turns out, the way things are increasingly includes the way they ought to be. In other words, the ontology of our globalizing world is increasingly deontological in texture. This may sound contradictory. Nevertheless, the spread of universal norms - and of equally universal ordering principles, or patterns of global organization - has undeniable repercussions for the relationship between is and ought. In turn, the implications for states are profound. The answer to my central question, "Wither the state under globalization?" is this: we are now on the threshold of a neo-medieval era of segmented political authority. Centrally nested within this new order is the embedded cosmopolitan state, wherein universal and particular aspects of being can now be fully reconciled.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 1999. / Adviser: Elizabeth Ammons. Submitted to the Dept. of English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-194). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;