This dissertation examines the recent introduction of U.S.-style, image-based political management techniques into Colombian politics, a phenomenon facilitated by the comprehensive market and political reforms of the 1990s. The Colombian elites who favored these reforms hoped to dismantle the clientelistic networks of private interests that, in their view, perpetuated a corrupt, ineffective, and at times, collusive two-party system. They hoped that a multi-party system would provide Colombian voters with real political choice. However, despite these efforts, clientelism continues to thrive under the new regime. With party/faction loyalty no longer the dominant driver in elections, campaigns now hire political managers to guide voters’ choices based on individual candidates’ appeal. Ironically, these practices have created “electoral industries,” networks of voters organized around political figures as opposed to party platforms. These electoral industries have easily adapted to existing clientelistic networks, the very networks the reforms were meant to dismantle. Meanwhile, through the language of market segmentation, political elites have publicly moralized clientelism’s resilience, characterizing it as a persistent, anti-modern behavior that can be objectively correlated with lower class voters. Their portrait of clientelism stands in stark contrast to the liberal political subjectivity (grounded in individual choice) that they attribute to urban middle and upper classes. According to these ideas, political managers mobilize specific technologies meant to more effectively manage each kind of vote. While lower class voters are managed through face-to-face networks and informal channels of communication, middle and upper class voters are reached through broadcast media and web-based social media. By looking at the institutional platforms, expert knowledge, political technologies and normative political ideas at work in the organization of these environments for political participation, my work explores the features of liberalism that allow clientelism and media-based politics to coexist, and even thrive, under a single system. Specifically, I trace the emergence of a form of “strategic citizenship,” to borrow Partha Chatterjee’s term, that I argue is the latest guise that the transactional dimensions of liberalism has taken.

Finland och Sverige har mycket gemensamt – historiskt, kulturellt och geografiskt till exempel. Ändå finns påtagliga skillnader mellan hur problematiseringen av säkerhetspolitiken yttrar sig i de båda länderna. I denna uppsats analyseras den säkerhetspolitiska retoriken med Carol Lee Bacchis socialkonstruktivistiska metod för politisk analys. Analysen sker utifrån två teoretiska perspektiv, liberalism och realism, och hur dessa ser på staten, internationellt samarbete och säkerhetsbegreppet. Genom att analysera hur de båda ländernas nuvarande politiska ledning skriver om säkerhetspolitik identifieras vilket huvudsakligt perspektiv på internationella relationer som ligger till grund för doktrin och säkerhetspolitiska överväganden. Därmed skapas förutsättningar att förstå och kanske även förutse de båda ländernas agerande i det internationella systemet. Analysen visar att båda länderna är på väg bort från den småstatsrealism som präglade dem under kalla kriget men att särskilt Finland fortfarande har tydliga kopplingar till realismen när det kommer till problematisering av säkerhetsbegreppet och synen på staten. De största skillnaderna när det gäller nationell försvarsförmåga går att spåra till olika tolkningar av rysk vilja och förmåga att påverka länderna med hårda maktmedel. Sverige ser att nationella intressen bäst tillvaratas tillsammans med andra genom EU. Globalisering och gemensam säkerhet går före den nationella försvarsförmågan. Även Finlands retorik är övervägande pro-europeisk men det finns fortfarande en tydlig fokus på nationella finska intressen.

Uppsatsens syfte är att analysera den mediala debatten kring konfessionella friskolor för att komma fram till hur diskursen kring de religiösa friskolorna konstrueras. Vilka teman är debatten uppbyggd kring, vilka utgångspunkter grundar sig den i och vilka begränsningar skapas det i talet om de religiösa friskolorna? Uppsatsen behandlar såväl olika syn på religion och dess betydelse, som integration, liberalistiska värden och hur makt skapas i samband med institutionaliserade diskurser.   Vidare kan man genom debatten även utröna diskussioner om vilken funktion skolan bör ha, hur mycket statlig styrning som är önskvärd och hur intolerans egentligen ska definieras. Genom analysen uppmärksammas det svenska svenska samhället och de sekulariserade samt liberalistiska värden som styr möjligheterna att utala sig som de religiösa friskolorna. Debatten kring de religiösa friksolorna kan bland annat ses som en sätt att försöka kontrollera och definiera religionen och dess alltmer påtagliga plats i det offentliga.

As Englands first colony, Irelands experience is of great significance to wider colonial studies. Similarities exist between settler societies such as Australia, Canada and Ireland in terms of economic structures and demographic tensions; however the colonial experience of Ireland is unique as it was Englands first colonial enterprise and therefore something of an ongoing experiment, and also because of its proximity to the home island. Nowhere else was Englands appropriation of overseas territory followed by an attempt to amalgamate it into domestic lands.</p><p>This thesis discusses aspects of colonialism, political-religious dissent and education in Belfast in the immediate post-Union period (1801-1814). The commentary is couched in a study of The Belfast Monthly Magazine, a small publication that ran from 1808-1814 which provides a contemporary account of Belfast reformers who had witnessed the period of rebellion and union and continued to promote real whig principles in its aftermath. William Drennan (1754-1820) undertook the publishing venture jointly with John Templeton (1766-1825) and John Hancock (1762-1823). Drennan was a co-founder of the United Irishmen, Templeton was a well-known botanist and former United Irishman, and Hancock was a linen merchant and former member of the Society of Friends. The Proprietors, as they referred to themselves in their publication, reported on continental politics and their observations on the ongoing Napoleonic wars were largely informed by their experiences of civil unrest over the previous three decades.</p>

With background in the acknowledgement of the current period of major change in the characteristics of traditional Swedish foreign policy, considering the membership in the European Union, as well as the new contextual scenarios that Sweden has been situated in after the end of the cold war, this thesis aims at scrutinizing the Swedish Foreign Policy from 1991 to 2010. The purpose of the thesis is further to localize continuity and change in the ideas which Sweden has explicitly stated in its foreign policy. Based on the theory of institutionalism, the thesis also aims to bring forward plausible explanations built on the main empirical findings. This has been done by identifying different types of goals and means within realism and liberalism as well as categorizing each theory within three ideal types. The chosen research method has been a qualitative text analysis with focus on an ideational analysis. The material on which the descriptive analysis is based upon is constituted by the annual statements of government policy in parliamentary debates on foreign affairs. The results of the thesis show that the ideas that are related to solidarity, consensus and active foreign policy are constant through the period of examination. The ideas of neutrality and non-alignment could, based on the conducted analysis, be understood to continue to go through great changes, of which the engagement in the Common Foreign and Security Policy within the European Union is the most obvious example.

<p>The principle of respect for other persons is commonly invoked in contemporary liberalism as justification for the claim that a conscientious citizen in a liberal democracy is morally obligated to refrain from supporting a coercive law for which he lacks suitable public justification. This view has been challenged by Christopher Eberle in <italics>Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics</italics>, who argues that although a citizen has an obligation to pursue a convincing secular rationale for a coercive law, he does not have an obligation to withhold support for a law for which he lacks such a rationale.</p> <p>In this dissertation I attempt to develop a basic analytical framework which can be used to formulate a suitable conception of respect for persons in the public square. Only with such an underlying conception of respect in hand is it possible to adjudicate the competing claims concerning what the principle of respect for persons should be deemed to require of citizens in advocating and supporting coercive laws.</p> <p>The framework I propose views respect for persons as a complex and variegated concept. It separately considers four different forms or notions of respect, and takes the attitude of respect as foundational and prior to the other forms of respect. I conclude that any conception of respect will entail commitment to a broader ethical theory or set of ethical principles. Accordingly, in the final chapter, I suggest that Robert Audi's "value-based Kantian intuitionism," with its emphasis on respect and the dignity of persons as a grounding property, may constitute an auspicious ethical theory to which appeal may plausibly be made in completing a conception of respect.</p> / Dissertation

Within the context of contemporary politics, Christian, Muslim and Liberal traditions have been, in many instances, at odds with each other regarding how humankind‘s social political future should be ordered. Such a conflicting condition has been aggravated by the global circulation of democratic ideals, which has significantly disseminated Western liberal values and made those ideals an almost universal desirable social commodity. In support of this argument, one can observe the unprecedented and controversial assumption that liberal democracy has become the ultimate form of political governance. It is in the context of these end-times liberal aspirations, whether self desired or imposed through external pressure, that some competing and conflicting elements are introduced into the political landscape of Christian and Muslim groups. By presenting itself as the universal and final solution for humanity‘s future, liberalism appears to create uneasiness among religious people who, indeed, see its secular and religious-privatizing tendencies as a secular eschatological competitor. Despite this perceived end-times conflict, there may be hope for a constructive dialogue among these groups.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore contemporary communitarian thinker Michael J. Sandel¡¦s political philosophy concerning one that realizes the importance of ¡§virtue¡¨ and ¡§ends¡¨ in citizenship and the state. I argue that although Sandel is often known as one of the most compelling critics of John Rawls¡¦ justice theory, his more ambitious commitment since 1984 is to provide a vision about the nature and aim of political life through insights of civic republicanism. The goal of this essay is to sort out Sandel¡¦s perspectives on these normative statements. Introducing from the debates between justice and the good in ethics, I explain what motivates me to write this essay and briefly describe the framework and approach of the thesis. In the second chapter, I elaborate Sandel¡¦s philosophical anthropology. Different from Rawls¡¦ the conception of human, Sandel¡¦s version is one with moral disposition¡X¡Xthat is to say, at the moment when we ask ourselves ¡§ who am I¡H¡¨, it comes to the answer that we are constitutive beings, rather than unencumbered selves from nowhere. Only when an agent is capable of self-reflection and recognizing how self is situated can self-knowledge and political practices possible. In short, only in a political community can spirit of citizenship be realized. In chapter three, I trace Sandel¡¦s argument and point out the fact that the theory and practice of contemporary liberalism has practically become a synonym to procedural republic. It is presented not only the ideas of ¡§rights as trumps¡¨ and neutral state, but also revealed by the erosion of community and the loss of self-government. Therefore, how to rebuild moral life in modern democratic practices has become an important task for people of our time. Following the political tradition of republicanism in American history, Sandelian republicanism, inherence of Aristotlian perfectionism, stresses the importance of political community as a whole to cultivate civic virtue. So I discuss the meaning of freedom/liberty and self-government. Through above discussions, I try to reveal Sandel¡¦s idea of democracy that insists conserving certain conceptions of the good, common ends and substantial moral contents in political life. In chapter four, I deal with how Sandel respond to the tension between republicanism and liberalism. From communitarianism to republicanism, I am persuaded that the core of Sandel¡¦s philosophy lies in the idea of citizenship and the ends of state. Civic virtues are so intrinsic to political life and will help to lead us to a good life. State or government shouldn¡¦t just be neutral but should play a role in developing good citizens. In final chapter, I concluded that Sandel¡¦s concerns to community and citizen and his republican ideals revive an yet long forgotten tradition in democratic thoughts.

This thesis is an attempt to understand the accomplishment and restrictions of present liberalism from the viewpoint of communitarianism. Liberalism (or constitutional democracy) is the representation of the long-term history of mutual influences among political, cultural and economic structures in western civil society. It is not an abstract noun; on the contrary, it represents the result of dialogues among numerous individuals and communities under specific contexts of time and space. Civil society emerges at the same time when individuals depart from the traditional community. Accordingly, there is a qualitative change in the citizenship from active republicanism to passive liberalism. In other words, citizens are no longer interested in political participation, and turn to self-realization in personal matters. On the one hand, it results in a diverse and prosperous society; on the other hand, the positive citizen participation gradually collapses during this process. The phenomenon mentioned above requires us to find an institution or procedure to balance the common goods and private interests. Meanwhile, certain virtues of the citizenry are requisite to maintain the system. If not, no matter how perfect the institution is, it will be threatened by failure. Therefore, in order to promote the virtues of the citizens and to respond to the vigorous individuality and a diverse and prosperous society, constitutional democracy should be taken as the core of our civil education.

Liberty as well as equality has been the objective of the trend of liberalism ever since it commenced. More common sense exists with respect to the issue of liberty which guarantess and carries out liberalism¡Fnevertheless¡Mopinions differ on fulfilling the idea of equality, particularly the economic issue. In present times,the consequence of the insistence of willfully diminishing liberalism on the market brings about some social problems, such as the widening gap between the rich and the poor. This makes a part of advocates of liberalism, for example, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin redeem economic justice and allocation, persisting in the fact that nations should take regulatory measures or promote social welfare system to implement the idea of looking after the minor groups thereafter. However, the perspective maintained by them incurs the criticism from the core scholars of liberalism like Friedrich A.Hayek and Rober Nozick that opine the perspective will be a far cry from the core concept of classical liberalism, which regards a nation is interference with the economic allocation policy as an invasion of personal freedom. While John Rawls is theory of justice principle constitutes, causing the dispute within the internal lines of contemporary liberalism, the theory, to be blunt, gives rise to a new trend of thought as regards the balance for which liberalism searches to protect personal freedom and facilitate social economic justice. In addition, liberalism cherishes individual freedom, emphasizes personal uniqueness as well as development, and pursues individual value and the conception of the good to embody respecting of personal thoughts. This genre of concept influences the stance a nation holds on the conception of the good, and thinks that personal value should be respected and not be meddled to embody neutral attitude of a nation. Rawls theory ¡]Theory of Justice¡^takes aim at justice to be the primary morality. Furthermore, priority is placed on ego or righteous independence that value or the conception of the good. He also hangs on to chase after the outlook of obligatory theory of the conception of the good under the frame constructed by justice. Yet, the theory of right priority, Atomism , neutral attitude towards a country, and value subjectivity that insisted by liberalism are all denounced by communitarianism who are of the opinion that the consequences of the Atomism in liberalism will lead to the loss of personal meaning, whereas the neutral attitude towards a country will contribute to problems, such as difficulties in building up social correctness to accomplish public interests. As to the criticism made by communitarianism, liberalism has the opportunity of reconsidering and scrutinizing its theory aside from making counter attacks, which generates a positive meaning for the development of theory of modern liberalism.