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.

This thesis aims to construct a sensitising framework of concepts and propositions in order to establish foundations for an interpretive sociological understanding of the process of politics in formal organisational arenas. In doing so, it seeks to consider and discuss some broader issues and problems which have engaged the recent interest of general sociologists, but which have been more or less neglected by practitioners in the organisational sub-field. A detailed critical examination of the "politics-related" literature reveals the tacit existence of three types of approach to the topic, none of which provides a sufficient grounding for the sociological study of organisational power and politics. The weaknesses of existing contributions are shown to lie as much in their dominant methodology of theorising as in the latter's content, and it is therefore imperative to clarify certain methodological matters before progressing very far. It is in fact argued that, in order to comply with the demands of the theoretical assumptions underlying this thesis, the academic activity of theorising must be sensitising rather than definitive. In spite of their various shortcomings, the prominant theories in the area offer important clues as to the nature of power and politics, and these clues are transformed into three conceptual themes - of order-conflict, of possibilities-impossibilities and of the two faces of power - which act as analytical points of reference for the development of a sensitising framework. To explore the pivotal characteristic of the interpretive sociological approach to political action, viz. the subjective meaningfulness of such action, discussion focuses primarily upon participants' everyday theorising activities which, through their interpretive and strategic functions, mediate between the objective social world of organisational life and the observable process of organisational power and politics.

This thesis examines recent experiments with participatory democracy in the context of decentralised local government. It charts the evolution in attitudes to the role of the generality of citizens in their own government, from commentators who were convinced that stability depended upon their apathy, to the current belief that mass involvement will save local democracy from deteriorating further into crisis. From the literature it is apparent that various authorities have pursued decentralisation initiatives for very different, sometimes conflicting reasons, not all concerned with democratisation. These have frequently been only vaguely articulated and then half-heartedly implemented. Where democratisation has actually been attempted and has included a participatory element, it is the particular contention here that there has been a mismatch between the structures adopted and the objectives to be achieved such that the community participants involved are prevented from playing the role envisaged for them. Furthermore, it is argued that a belief that the emergent participants are non political overlooks their true party affiliations; consequently there has been a failure to introduce sufficient safeguards to ensure true accountability to the constituents for whom they are intended to speak. The case studies on which the research is based are drawn from Scotland where there is an existing grassroots network of community councils which might have formed the building block for any new structures of involvement. Two quite contrasting models are examined, one primarily intended to improve the council's responsiveness to local needs and aspirations in regard to provision of public services, and one intended to offset disadvantage through empowerment. These are evaluated in the light of the above hypotheses and alternative models are evolved better suited to achieving the council's apparent aims. Finally lessons are drawn in relation to their effectiveness or otherwise as examples of new forms of participatory democracy which would have a potential to lower the barriers to involvement by those who currently choose, or are forced, to remain excluded from our present representative forms of democracy.

`Our main feare to have our religion lost, our throats cutted, and our poor countrey made an English province.' As graphically articulated by Robert Baillie, minister of Kilwinning in Ayrshire (and subsequently principal of the university of Glasgow), the apprehensions which motivated the Scots to promulgate the National Covenant on 28 February 1638, were as much nationalist as religious. The primary purpose of this thesis is to argue that although religion, more specifically the imposition of liturgical innovations, was undoubtedly the issue which precipitated the termination of Charles I's thirteen year personal rule, the Scots were collectively reacting against innovatory policies conceived at Court, policies intent on the fundamental restructuring of Scottish government and society as well as the implementation of economic no less than religious uniformity throughout the British Isles. The failure of Charles I was not just a matter of political presentation, though his authoritarian style of government was instrumental in provoking Scots to revolt in defence of civil and religious liberties. The emergence of the Covenanting Movement entailed a substantial rejection of Charles' personal rule both with respect to policy content and political direction. Paradoxically, the elite who manufactured revolution in name of the Covenanting Movement were to draw on lessons learned from Charles I in promoting the central reorientation of Scottish government between 1638 and 1641. During these years, marked ostensibly by the imposition of constitutional checks on absentee monarch in Kirk and State and the replacement of the Court by the National Covenant as the political reference point for Scottish society, the revolutionary essence of the Covenanting Movement demonstrably lay in its organisational capacity to exert unprecedented demands for ideological conformity, military recruitment and financial supply. Accordingly, this thesis is intent on providing not just an exhaustive and detailed reconstruction of mainstream political developments between 1625 and 1641, but also a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the conduct of the personal rule, the emergence of the Covenanting Movement and the radical nature of the Scottish revolution which was to serve as the model for terminating the personal rule of Charles I in England and Ireland. Occasional comparisons and contrasts are drawn where apposite with contemporaneous political developments elsewhere in Europe. A brief introduction sets the scenes with regard to past commentaries on the origin and organisation of the Covenanting Movement during the reign of Charles I. Thereafter, the first three chapters define the flexible nature of the political nation in Scotland and expound its aspirations nationally and internationally in the wake of the union of the Crowns in 1603, aspirations which were compromised politically by James VI's departure south but not undermined critically until the accession of Charles I in 1625 as an absentee monarch ill-versed in the composition of the Scottish body politic and manifestly insensitive to its personal fears of provincialism. The single most fractious yet least comprehensive issue of the personal rule was the Revocation Scheme - Scotland's equivalent to the Schleswig-Holstein question. Although a lord justice-clerk of the last century has complemented Charles I for setting the whole law of tithes (teinds) on a sound footing, the aspects of the Revocation Scheme which mattered to his Scottish subjects were its specious introduction, its authoritarian implementation, its technical complexities and, above all, its wholescale disregard for landed title and privilege. Three chapters have been devoted to unravelling its comprehensive scope but limited impact and another three to its political ramifications, notably its permeation of a climate of dissent and its progressive sapping of the will of the Scottish administration to uphold monarchical authority. Fiscal aspects dominate the next three chapters. Charles' dogmatic pursuit of economic uniformity is identified as marking a critical shift, the moving of the disaffected element within the political nation to open collusion verging on civil disobedience to obstruct the implementation of directives from Court. The pursuit of uniformity, especially evident in Charles' promotion of the common fishing and tariff reform, coupled to his cavalier disregard for the establishment of sound money in Scotland, served not only to induce economic recession but to differentiate between the royal interest and the national interest. This crucial differentiation which was to underwrite the Scottish revolution was simultaneously carried a combustible stage further by Charles' censorious management of his coronation parliament, by his exemplary prosecution of James Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino, as a leader of the disaffected element and by his public endorsement of episcopally inspired campaigns to eradicate nonconformity in the Kirk. The rallying of the disaffected element and their mounting of public demonstrations against liturgical innovations, as manifest by the rioting which greeted readings from the Service Book in Edinburgh during the summer of 1637, form the substance of the next three chapters and are complemented by the subsequent two which trace the progressive emergence of the tables from a vehicular organisation for public protest into a provisional government resolved on a radical interpretation of the National Covenant. In spite of the apparent conservatism of its framing, this document was in essence both a nationalist and radical manifesto to secure the fundamental reordering of government in Kirk and State while reasserting the political independence of the Scottish people. Rather than seek to retread ground well served by political narratives of the Covenanting Movement following its emergence in 1638, the last three chapters prior to the conclusion scrutinise the revolutionary attainments of the elite directing the cause from the first constitutional defiance of Charles I at the general assembly of 1638 through recourse to hostilities between Covenanters and Royalists during the Bishops' Wars of 1639-40. Having brought to bear sufficient military and political pressure to oblige Charles I to concede diplomatic recognition for the Scottish state as an independent identity within the British Isles, a concession furthered by the willingness of the Covenanting leadership to export revolution, the entrenchment of oligarchic control over Scottish affairs was consummated by the parliament of 1641. Because the contrasting political fortunes of Charles I and the Covenanting Movement nationally are appraised summarily in the penultimate chapter, the formal conclusion takes the unconventional format of providing a regional perspective - that of the west of Scotland - to successive government by Crown and Covenant between 1625 and 1641. Although local particularism persisted throughout these sixteen years, there was a significant difference in the regional response to centralised directives before and after 1638. That the grievances of the west tended to coalesce with the rest of Scotland in the course of the personal rule suggests that Charles I, regionally as well as nationally, was the political architect of his own downfall. By way of contrast, despite unprecedented ideological, military and financial demands, the Covenanting Movement retained wholescale support in the west for its national endeavou

The provision of state pensions in the advanced countries faces two significant and reinforcing challenges. Demographic change and global economic pressure impact the provision of public pensions by increasing social spending and depending on the method of financing, the base of government’s revenues from which these programmes are funded. Countries belonging to the liberal welfare model, such as the UK and Canada, hold a common view on the primacy of the market and actively adapt measures that keep social benefits modest. Yet the reforms adopted by the UK and Canadian government reveal divergence. This presents a puzzle as the welfare state literature predicts convergence. Canada with its small domestic market and open economy has greater exposure to risks of globalisation than the UK, but it is the UK and not Canada that adopted the more radical reforms. To explain this puzzle, this thesis examines four cases: two different pensions’ schemes in each of the two countries – Canada and the UK. The thesis argues that the concentration of political authority is central to explaining the variation, although not the sole factor.

The role of the media - East and West - in the East European revolutions in 1989 has been the subject of much discussion and research. However, the focus has been on the extent to which the media directly influenced these events. There has been very little work done on the impact of the revolutions on how the western news media reported events to their domestic audiences. Yet for over 40 years, they had reported Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union within a specific, interpretative framework: "Cold War News". Suddenly, in 1989, the whole referential structure appeared to fall apart as assumptions shattered and certainties crumbled. This study, therefore, examines the impact of political revolution and crisis on 'Cold War news'. It uses in-depth quantitative-qualitative content analysis, and pays special attention to images, language, themes, and structures of access in order to reveal the nature and extent of the paradigm crisis and point up contradictions that may arise as a result.