In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Kingdom of Siam's territorial integrity and independence were threatened by the great imperial Powers of France and Great Britain. In the course of the century and in the first decade of the twentieth century, Siam conceded extraterritorial rights, gave fiscal concessions, lost some of her territories to the two Great Powers, but maintained her independence. She owed her survival as an independent nation, on the one hand, to her distant position, from the major trade routes of the period and to the rivalry between France and Great Britain, and, on the other hand, to her accommodating diplomacy and to the modernization of her government and administration. This Thesis examines one aspect of Siam's modernization of her government and administration namely the creation, the growth, and the achievements of the Ministry of the Interior under Prince Damrong Rachanuphap between 1392 and 1915. The subject of the modernization of the Ministry of the Interior was chosen because it makes a contribution to the knowledge of the history of Siam. It is concerned with Siam's internal politics in both its metropolitan and provincial settings. It also deals with much of Siam's external politics in the nineteenth century and in the first decade of the twentieth century. The main body of the Thesis is a detailed examination of Siam's traditional provincial administration, its gradual reform in the 1870s and 1880s, the creation of the centralized system of provincial administration known as the Thesaphiban system of provincial administration between 1892 and 1899, and its implementation and development between 1899 and 1915. This Thesis is occupied not only with the provincial but also with other branches of the administration. The Ministry of the Interior had during this period subsidiary departments, namely the Forestry, Mines, Provincial Gendarmerie, Provincial Revenue, Health, and Provincial Criminal Investigation Departments. It also helped to extend the work of the Ministries of Education, Defence, and Agriculture into the provinces. The subject of the modernization of the Ministry of the Interior was also chosen because it bears some relation to problems of more general historical interest. The survival of Siam as an independent nation thanks partly to the reform of her government and administration is related to the question of the modernization and westernization of non-European countries in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The Thesis attempts to analyse the internal and external forces which caused Siam to reform her government and administration. At the same time, it tries to detect the traditional western elements in the various schemes of modernization. In this way, the Thesis might ultimately be of some use to comparative studies of modernization and westernization between non-European nations such as between Siam and Japan. The treatment is original inasmuch as it is the first time that archival sources have been used in the study of this subject. Hitherto, the best studies or the subject such as Detchard Vongkomolshet's 'The Administrative, Judicial, and Financial Reforms of King Chulalongkorn 1868-1910' (Cornell Univ. M.A. thesis 1958) and Chakkrit Moranitiphadungkan's Somdet Phrachao Borommawongthoe Krom Phraya Damrong Rachanuphap kap Krasuang Mahatthai, Prince Damrong Rachanuphap and the Ministry of the Interior (Bangkok, 1963) have used only published sources such as printed documents, official journals, and memoirs. These works are also limited 'by a legalistic approach which concentrates on the declaration of intentions rather than on an investigation of the implementation of the edicts and regulations in the field. The Thesis tries to show that there was a great deal of discrepancy between the government's ideals and their practical fulfilment. This disparity existed both before and after the reform of the government and the administration in the 1880s and 1890s. On the one hand, it seems, for instance, that traditional Siamese government and administration worked quite differently in theory and in practice in both their metropolitan and provincial settings. On the other hand, it appears that, as far as the Ministry of the Interior was concerned, the promulgation of reforms in the 1880s and 1890s did not entail their immediate fulfilment. The Ministry faced active opposition and passive resistance to the modernisation of the provincial administration. The government's lacK of money also meant that it suffered from a scarcity of professional civil servants which in turn resulted in a iacK of leadership and efficiency in the implementation of reforms in every sphere and at every level of the provincial administration. The Thesis ends by asking the reader to treat the Siamese government and administration according to their contemporary terms. The traditional government and administration, although they worked quite differently in theory and in practice, were not only capable of managing internal politics but also of executing ambitious external policies. The Ministry or the Interior, in spite of the disparity between the declaration of intentions and the implementation of reforms, did manage to overcome active and passive opposition and to lay the foundation for a centralized system of provincial administration. Although its success did perhaps imply that Siamese administration became somewhat over-centralized and over-bureaucratized, the Ministry did try to forestall and to remove these drawbacks by laying at the same time the foundation for self-government at the village and municipal levels. Finally, the Thesis pays tribute to Prince Damrong Rachanuphap who helped to create, to lead, and to inspire the Siamese Ministry of the Interior froiu 1892 to 1915.

The thesis is a contribution to two of the crucial problems of middle Byzantine history: the social and political structure of the provinces, and the explanation of the rapid fall of Asia Minor to the Turks at the end of the llth century. These problems are approached through a study of the Maeander region of western Asia Minor.Part one describes the geography of the region and shows it to have been a naturally fertile area, of great potential importance to the Empire. In the Roman period it had been very prosperous; the subsequent decline cannot be explained by geological or climatic factors. Part two surveys the archaeological evidence. The ancient city sites remained occupied at a sometimes very low cultural level through the early (7th -8th century) and middle (9th-llth century) Byzantine periods. A general move of settlements to apparently more secure sites with natural defences did not take place until the 12th-13th centuries in the face of the Turks. Up to the end of the llth century the city sites remained the focus of what was most active in the provincial society of the Maeander region. Part three looks at the region's elites. The strategoi and judges who ruled the theme of the Thrakesioi, which makes up the western two-thirds of the region, were outsiders appointed by the Imperial government in Constantinople and only in the region on short term appointments. Several major figures at the Imperial court owned land in the region but only as absentee landlords. When crisis came between 1071 and 1080 these outsiders abandoned the Maeander to the Turks. The church played an important role, but the resident local elite were a comparatively humble group, isolated from Constantinople, and lacking the influence to force the Imperial government into defending their interests.

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.

Intergenerational solidarity and reciprocity are fundamental building blocks of any society. At the same time, socio-generational groups constantly struggle for influence and authority. In Sub-Saharan Africa, disproportionately male, gerontocratic and patrimonial systems governing economic, social and political life lend a special explosiveness to the social cleavage of generation. This dissertation draws on the concept of the generational contract to explore whether Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war (1991-2001) – labelled a ‘revolt of youth’ – catalysed changes in the power-asymmetries between age groups. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2010, I argue that youth in post-war Sierra Leone question fundamental norms of intergenerational relations and challenge local governance structures demanding changes to the generational contract. Amidst a strong continuity of gerontocratic dominance and counter-strategies from elders, youth draw on organisational forms and a local rights discourse to create spaces for contestation and negotiation. These openings hold potential for long-term rearrangements of societal relations in the medium to long-term future.

First, the fifty years history of the Lake Weishan dispute can be divided into three eras, in which Xieshang, Xietiao, and Weitiao have captured the political keywords in each phase. From 1953 to 1980, xieshang between regional governments had dominated the political process; from 1980 to 1990, xietiao by central government had switched to the prevailing tone, in which three Central Documents had been issued to resolve this dispute; from 1990 to 2003, weitiao has remained as the only rational procedure for resolving this enduring conflict. In fact, one common thread to needle this political trilogy is the governance model based on negotiation and compromise rather than coercion and obedience. / Second, the structural, procedural, and cultural factors are aligned to account for this governance model. In the structural dimension, a semi-corporatism model has characterized the dynamics of central-local relationship. Local government is not only the arms reached at the region from political central, but also the legitimate representative of its jurisdiction. In the procedural dimension, democratic centralism is a practical mechanism rather than an ideological propaganda in Chinese politics. In resolving the divisive conflicts inside the political system, democratic centralism is the central government's operational principle, which can be distinguished into democratic decision process and centralized implement process, thus contributing to the bounded democratic process. In cultural dimension, Chinese politics has a tradition emphasizing fairness, compromises and negotiation. / Third, the Chinese body politic has never been a garment without seams nor needles. Inside our gigantic political system, there are a great deal of divisions even conflicts among the joint place between tiao and kuai. Borrowing from the well-known metaphor proposed by Vivienne Shue, in the Lake Weishan case as the dispute inside the honeycomb, there are not only opportunities towards the regime transition, but the divisive logic of this system. In this sense, to strengthen the central government's integrating capacity is vital for the future state building. / This case study on Lake Weishan dispute is theoretically intermingled in the matrix of Chinese political studies. In some sense, the governance of Lake Weishan has revealed the Chinese State anatomy whether in the tiao sense or in the kuai sense. Through this case study, three research questions have been attended: first, in what process have the central government employed to resolve this political dispute; second, what factors can explain the choice of the above political mechanisms; third, in what sense could this case enrich our understanding of the Chinese body politic. / Totalitarianism and authoritarianism have long been the prevailing paradigms in the Chinese political studies. This kind of structural analysis, however, can never do justice to the overall dynamics of the central-local relationship and the diversified political process in PRC. Through a case study focused on the inter-provincial dispute for Lake Weishan, this research has two main goals, one is to memorize this half century historical story, and the other is to analyze the underlying political process and its operational mechanisms. / 田雷. / Adviser: Shaoguang Wang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 2234. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 453-465). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Tian Lei.

李嘉寶. / "2007年8月". / 論文(哲學碩士)--香港中文大學, 2007. / 參考文獻(leaves 121-129). / "2007 nian 8 yue". / Abstract also in English. / Li Jiabao. / Lun wen (zhe xue shuo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2007. / Can kao wen xian (leaves 121-129). / 緒論 / Chapter 1. --- 前言 --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- 硏究回顧 --- p.3 / Chapter 3. --- 論文寫作框架 --- p.13 / Chapter 第一章 --- 修橋補路一一明清時期的慈善、國家與社會 / Chapter 1. --- 前言 --- p.15 / Chapter 2. --- 蘇松地區的修橋統計 --- p.18 / Chapter 3. --- 矛盾的修橋者一一有責無錢的官員 --- p.22 / Chapter 4. --- 慈善的修橋者一一行善積德的士紳 --- p.33 / Chapter 5. --- 修橋補路的中介者一一善堂的興起 --- p.42 / Chapter 6. --- 小結一一從修橋補路看國家與社會關係 --- p.45 / Chapter 第二章 --- 上海地方自治與路政發展 / Chapter 1. --- 前言 --- p.47 / Chapter 2. --- 兩種制度的相遇一一南市路政的起步 --- p.49 / Chapter 3. --- 自治十年的路政發展 --- p.58 / Chapter 4. --- 路政的經濟基礎 --- p.70 / Chapter 5. --- 小結 --- p.75 / Chapter 第三章 --- 自治與社會 / Chapter 1. --- 前言 --- p.76 / Chapter 2. --- 從慈善到路政之過渡 --- p.77 / Chapter 3. --- 自治組織的權威危機與加強 --- p.85 / Chapter 4. --- 小結 --- p.95 / Chapter 第四章 --- 自治與國家 / Chapter 1. --- 前言 --- p.96 / Chapter 2. --- 城濠公地案中自治組織與地方政府的關係 --- p.97 / Chapter 3. --- 拆城築路案中自治組織與地方政府的關係 --- p.101 / Chapter 4. --- 兩案之結局 --- p.109 / Chapter 5. --- 小結 --- p.115 / 結論 --- p.117 / 參考書目 --- p.121