This thesis explores the limits to purposive change in liberal democracies. Its aim is to provide new analytical tools and concepts to understand better the basis of liberal democracy’s legitimacy, the mechanisms and limitations of political agency at work in it, and the ways in which societal change is delimited and channelled in what is today the most dominant form of political order. The thesis contains three conceptual innovations. The first concerns the nature of liberal democracy, which is shown to involve an ‘epistemic’ dimension of legitimacy on which the system’s stability relies. This explanatory account of legitimacy argues that in a modern democracy the paradoxical relation of the people to itself as both ruler and ruled can only be stabilised when both sides of the equation refer to the same ‘independent’ reality – a reality that has to be generated outside their precarious relationship and hence (for example) in the capitalist market economy. The second innovation regards an analytical distinction between three fundamental ‘modes’ of political agency – decision, choice and solution – whose deployment is strictly controlled by the systemic requirements of ‘epistemic legitimacy’. The result is shown to be an ‘agentic deadlock’ in liberal democracy, which inhibits purposive societal change. The third innovation concerns the very idea of ‘change’ itself. Based on Wittgenstein’s notion of grammar a concept of transformation is developed, which allows us to account for the subtle and long-term changes in the discursive structure of liberal-democratic societies. After comparing these conceptual innovations with the dominant aggregative, deliberative and radical approaches to democratic theory, the thesis concludes with a suggestion for an institutional innovation that might help break the agentic deadlock in liberal democracy.

This four article journal-based dissertation builds on Gene Sharp's framework of nonviolent direct action, along with Hess and Martin's repression backfire, in order to deepen our understanding of how state repression impacts protest mobilization and historical processes of social change. After initially problematizing Gene Sharp’s notions of power and consent with aid of political discourse theory, and two case studies of the 1905 Russian Bloody Sunday Massacre and the South African 1976 Soweto Massacre, the dissertation moves onto specifically explain the conditions under which protest mobilization is likely to continue after severe state repression. A causal process model underpins the logic of the dissertation. It identifies generalizable antecedent factors and conditions under which repression backfire is most likely to occur. Numerous mechanisms are also introduced that help explain the operation of this process across different historical eras and political systems. After applying this process model and its mechanisms to the 2013 Turkish Gezi protests, a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 44 different historical massacres is presented in which repression backfired and increased protest in some cases, but not others. Repression backfire is a highly asymmetrical and nonlinear causal phenomenon. I conclude that nonviolent protest strategy has been a salient factor in historical cases of repression backfire and is also vital for the ability of protests to withstand state repression. However, the role of nonviolence is partial and to some degree inadequate in explaining repression backfire if it is not linked to other general factors which include protest diversity, protest threat level, and geographic terrain.

The scope of the thesis encapsulates the wider post-war White Separatist Movement from the origins of American Nazism under George Lincoln Rockwell to the later developments of leaderless resistance and the political and cultural changes to the movement. The specific focus will be upon the relationship between George Lincoln Rockwell and the leaderless resistance concepts, in particular through its development and utilisation. Due to the complexity of the issues and the variety of influencing factors it is necessary in the first instance to assess it in terms of a historiography to allow themes to develop. As a result of this historical analysis themes have become evident to allow a conceptual analysis. In particular the thesis will utilise the following thematic contexts for assessing the various developments within White Separatism: including, state building; political marketing; the role of the media; and the propensity for terror and hate activities. In assessing the basis upon which the conceptual analysis is developed the research has utilised extensive use of texts, radio broadcasts, and pamphlets from the movement. The study has also been able to consider, government reports, law enforcement updates and communications from Civil Rights groups and other agencies. In the conceptual analysis of this information and themes, the thesis utilises new concepts as a means of creating an understanding of a rapidly changing area of politics; including ‘organic politic’ and ‘political firms’, when assessing political marketing trends; and assessing terrorist motivation.

With the increasing importance and prevalence of kin-state policies, this thesis identifies three gaps in existing kin-state research. Theoretically, existing literature focuses on how kin relations can induce or reduce conflict between states, overlooking the dynamics of interaction between kin-states and kin communities. Conceptually, existing literature focuses on kin communities as minorities, overlooking kin majorities. Methodologically, existing literature focuses on top-down institutional and state-level analyses of kin-state relations, overlooking bottom-up agency-centred perspectives. To address these gaps, the thesis develops a model of nested integration, to analyse relations been kin-states and kin majorities from a bottom-up perspective. Nested integration does not challenge the borders separating kin-state from kin communities, but affects the meaning of this border. The thesis examines the comparative explanatory power of this model of nested integration by generating evidence about the meanings of kin identification and engagement with different kin-state practices, through a cross-case comparison of Crimea vis-à-vis Russia and Moldova vis-à-vis Romania. These cases are selected from a wider kin majority typology as two contrasting examples of kin-state policies: Romanian citizenship in Moldova and Russian quasi-citizenship Compatriot policy in Crimea. Overall, the thesis argues that Moldova exhibits more nested integration than Crimea because of the type, legitimacy and availability of kin-state provision, which the thesis argues is consequential for the degree of nested integration observed. The thesis also refines the model of nested integration, by taking account of empirical evidence, arguing for the importance of considering internal fractionalization within the kin majority, social dependence and geopolitical dependence. Incorporating these elements within the model shows kin-state relations to concern not only issues of identity, but also security, public goods provision and geopolitical region-building narratives. These elements have been overlooked by existing research and demonstrate the importance of a bottom-up, agency-centred and comparative perspective for kin-state scholarship.

This thesis charts the rise and fall of the Labour Party’s first and most enduring youth organisation, the Labour League of Youth. The history of the League, from its birth in the early nineteen twenties to its demise in the late nineteen fifties, is placed in the context of the Labour Party’s subsequent fruitless attempts to establish and maintain a vibrant and functional youth organisation. A narrative is incorporated that illuminates the culture, organisation and political activism of the League and establishes it as a predominantly working class radical organisation. The reluctance on the part of the Labour Party to grant autonomy to its youth sections resulted in the history of the League of Youth being one of control, suppression and tension. This state of affairs ensured that subsequent youth groups, the Young Socialists and Young Labour, would be established in an atmosphere of reservation and scepticism. The thesis places the prime responsibility for the failure of the party’s youth organisations with the party leadership but also considers the contributory factors of changing social and political circumstances. A number of themes are explored which include the impact of structure and agency factors, the power of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the political socialisation of leading figures within the party, the social context in which each of the groups emerged and the extent to which the youth groups were prey to intra-party factionalism. The thesis redresses the balance of research where most accounts have focussed on the Young Socialists and traces the common characteristics that are prevalent in the way the party leadership has approached its relationship with its youth organisations. Use has been made of previously unpublished primary source material, the major source being the League of Youth members themselves whose recollections have helped to demonstrate the arguments put forward in this thesis.

This thesis is a case study of Libertarian Party (LP) electioneering in the American bellwether State of Ohio. Officially established in 1972, America's growing LP currently ranks first amongst third parties in their electoral challenge to Democrats and Republicans. Nonetheless, growing duopolist hegemony in the form of the U.S. two-party system has greatly diminished a long and lively history of third party resistance. A survey of American cultural logics and political economy from colonial forms to garrison state constructions together reveal an ideology of party duopoly to serve elite hegemony. The thesis then moves to examine the manner in which Old Right proto-libertarians coalesced into a Libertarian movement. As a socio-cultural investigation of unwanted segments formerly with the Republican Party and their struggles with one another to socially construct the LP, this study is rare. Whilst highlighting interactionist complexities amongst Libertarian segments, the employment of a Rothbardian conflict perspective serves to illuminate a formerly prominent segment within the Libertarian movement. Non-Rothbardian conflict perspectives in synthesis with theories of culture are also drawn upon to broadly interrogate three major segments in their collective social constructions of Libertarian electioneering: classical liberal proponents of small involuntary government, Randian advocates of limited involuntary government, and Rothbardian purists for voluntary government. How the rationalisation of corporative cultural logics impacts upon shared meanings, social constructions, and practices of LP electioneering is also explored. The central argument in this thesis is that segments vie for power to define libertarianism and the LP, but do so within culturally determined codes and parameters. The resulting interpretation in this thesis demonstrates how seemingly paradoxical social constructions of electioneering as Libertarian emerge from corporative ationalisation. Nonetheless, corporative organisational reforms have overcome a range of differentiating factors to achieve greater cooperation between remaining segments after a recent exodus of purists. The result of the corporative turn in Libertarian politics led to rising prominence for an ideology of electability that invariably reinforces the status quo.

The orthodox interpretation of Michael Foot's election as Labour Party leader in 1980 is that it resulted from a left-wing surge within the broader Party throughout the 1970s. This thesis challenges this assumption. It does so by presenting a contextualised analysis of Foot, the Labour Party and the leadership elections of 1976 and 1980. This thesis argues that it was Foot's reputation and loyalty in government that enabled his political evolution to accelerate towards becoming a conciliatory figure during his leadership. To undertake this reconsideration of the orthodoxy, this thesis has adapted a previously illuminating research approach as utilised by Timothy Heppell. Heppell has produced a number of analyses upon ideological compositions of the Conservative Party during leadership elections, and, more recently, the Labour Party. This research approach was initially devised to consider only ideology. The approach has been improved by this thesis by including non-ideological considerations in order to draw out Labour specific factors in this analysis, because the extent to which the approach can be transferred to a different party at a different time required scrutiny. It is also necessary to acknowledge the need for a re-categorisation of the ideological factions within the Labour Party in order to gain a more complete understanding of Labour's ideological eclecticism. The social democratic right, the centrists, the inside left and outside left demonstrate that the simple assumption of 'left' and 'right' conceals a more complex Parliamentary composition. It is important to contextualise the analysis with a philosophical and historical discussion which places Michael Foot within Labour history. This enables a greater understanding of why he became the Labour leader to emerge. Foot's appropriateness as leader can only be fully appreciated by considering those who influenced him and his career in the Party along with the divided nature of the Labour Party over the period prior to his election. Through these discussions it becomes clear that Foot was able to secure the leadership because of his loyalty to the Labour Party, his record in government, and his Parliamentary interpretation of socialism which separated him from the outside left. This enabled him to be a leader the mainstream of the Party were able to broadly accept at a time of extreme division. His increased appropriateness as leader becomes more evident when contrasted against the likelihood of destructive divisions had a more ideologically dogmatic candidate such as Denis Healey or Tony Benn secured the leadership. The prevailing circumstances as well as the man must, therefore, be considered. This thesis also evaluates Foot's leadership with a view to demonstrate his ability to navigate the Labour Party following his election. The conclusion must be drawn that Labour's ability to prevail without disintegrating illustrates Foot's success as leader, and that the simplistic view that his leadership was simply the result of a left-wing surge is inadequate.

Anarquismo Revolucionario EL ESPAÑOL FORMA PARTE DEL PODER POLÍTICO QUE COMBATE CONTRA FRANCO DURANTE LA GUERRA CIVIL ESPAÑOLA (1936-1939). Y ANALISIS DE LOS GOBIERNOS LOCALES DE LA COMARCA DEL VALLÈS OCCIDENTAL Catalanes, DE LA CIUDAD DE BARCELONA limítrofe, DE Importancia INDUSTRIAL DE SERVICIOS. / participación en los gobiernos locales de los anarquistas revolucionarios

Anarquistas Revolucionarios LOS, A Través De Su SINDICATO Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, EN La región más INDUSTRIALIZADA DE ESPAÑA, CATALUÑA, CON TRADICIÓN Teórica ROMPEN SU TACTICA Y POLITICO Y SE INCORPORAN AL PODER, ECONOMICO Y SOCIAL. POR EXIGENCIAS DE LA GUERRA CIVIL (1936-1939) CONTRA EL lanzas fascista de Franco, PERO TAMBIEN POR LA REALIDAD DE LA IMPOSIBILIDAD DE IMPONER SU REVOLUCIONARIA Dictadura. / los anarquistas asumen parte del poder revolucionario en los municipios durante la guerra civil

Escrita EN CATALÁN IDIOMA, Y OTRAS Cuestiones Relacionadas AMPLIA CON MI TESIS DOCTORAL REVISA DEL AÑO 2001 "ACTIVIDAD POLITICA DE LA IZQUIERDA ES DURANTE LA Libertaria COMARCA DEL LA GUERRA CIVIL OCCIDENTAL" (UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE EDUCACION A DISTANCIA VALLÈS, FACULTAD DE GEOGRAFÍA E HISTORIA) (ESPAÑA) (REFERENCIAS A LA MISMA EN INTERNET: www.educacion.es/teseo/. Also available in: www.e-spacio.uned.es:8080. Also available in: www.cibernetia.com/tesis_es/HISTORIA/ HISTORIA_POR_EPOCAS / HISTORIA_CONTEMPORANEA / 4.Importancia RADICA EN QUE SE DE SU ESTUDIO MUY Trata de las Naciones,, PODER POLÍTICO DEL Unidas PORMENORIZADO, ECONOMICO, SOCIAL Y MILITAR DE LAS ORGANIZACIONES EN CONTEXTO Anarquistas de la ONU Y DE GUERRA ES UNA ZONA ECONOMICA DESARROLLADA, ASÍ COMO AL DE LA CON CONFRONTARSE Teórica PREVIA CIRCUNDANTE La Realidad, SE VEN OBLIGADOS A UNA EVOLUCIÓN TOTALMENTE A SU PENSAMIENTO POLÍTICO ANTERIOR Contraria.