Issued also as the author's Thesis--Bern. / Includes bibliographical references.

Issued also as the author's Thesis--Bern. / Includes bibliographical references.

The role of secularism in government is an important question following the events of the Arab Spring. This report aims to look at how Turkey and India's political systems evolved in the 20th and 21st century against the backdrop of constitutional secularism. Moreover, this report explores some of the consequences of secular principles on economic and societal progress. Turkey, with a stance that separates religion and state, has had numerous problems between secular and religious groups. This strife has led to multiple coups and cycles of progress and political turmoil. The military sees its duty as guarding the secular principles of Turkey -- a problem for politicians perceived as overly religious. In India, which has a concept of secularism that requires government consideration and protection for all religions, what has evolved is a political system that pits a party devoted to secularism against a party that advocates a more Hindu national identity. In both Turkey and India, some social and economic interests are drowned out by more vocal religious political groups. While both these countries have different interpretations of secularism, the current atmosphere in both countries fosters civil unrest and, at times, violence. On a societal level the rhetoric only serves to divide people. So long as this rhetoric and atmosphere exists, there is a limit to economic progress, societal stability, and international influence. This last aspect is especially important for these two countries, which have broad historical reach. In Turkey, previous restrictions on religion have been repealed by the current government in order to follow more democratic principles, however, many also see this as the first step towards a politically Islamic Turkey. In India, the religious rhetoric concerns the religious minority groups. India is a country with relatively high governmental restriction and very high societal hostility towards religion. Much of this hostility manifests as public violence. The emergence and predicted victory of a more Hindu political party only fuels the public debate over secularism. The challenge is to balance secularism with freedom of religion, and perhaps accept an evolving stance that reflects each policy's limit. / text

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal. / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

The thesis is focused on increasing the surface tension of polyethylen, using plasma. A gliding arc was chosen for this surface modi cation. The theoretical part includes an overview of gas discharges, their classi cation, properties and technical applications, and deals with an in uence of surface tension on surface modi cations of materials. The experiment is explained in the practical part, a jet analysis carried out before the experiment is described. Results of the experiment are presented.

To make sense of why states are dramatically shifting their agendas to focus on their diasporic population abroad, this project builds a theoretical model which makes sense of decisive shifts in political behavior between states and their external populations. A two-fold argument is presented to explain these shifts. First, analyses of diaspora should treat diaspora not as a bounded entity but as a process or social practice. This allows for a multi-level analysis which neither negates the role individuals play in the formation of diasporic identity nor denies the agency of states which actively engage in their own unique approach to identify, label or shape what constitutes their diaspora. Second, state-diasporic engagement practices can be better understood as an institutional practice, which in turn allow us to explain state behavioral change in terms of their diasporic populations and what factors elucidate diaspora to respond. It also allows us to ask two-fold questions - a) who the sending state targets, why they are targeted and when states increase their engagement with their diasporic populations abroad; and b) what policy tools states develop to encourage dependable contributions of the diaspora to its political agenda. These theoretical arguments are then applied to address the modern Indian state's approach and its shifting agenda to its diaspora. The intent is to provide a historical foundation from which to make sense of why the Indian diaspora evolved from a political liability under Jawaharlal Nehru to an instrument of strength in the early 1990s. This thesis concludes with an exploration of the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi's discourse and state practices and suggests that India's accelerated engagement of the Indian diaspora to be representative of a muscular Hindu nationalist agenda. In short, Modi's engagement of the Indian diaspora should be understood as part of a nation-building project which seeks to communicate to both domestic and international audiences alike that India and Indians are first and foremost Hindu. / Graduate

The Swedish independent research institute V-Dem, which measures democracy around the world, declared in their most recent report on the issue that India was no longer classified as a democracy, but an electoral autocracy. Amongst other things, V-Dem draws the conclusion that the election of the Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi in 2014 has been a strong contributor to the decline in democracy in India. At the same time, The U.S. Department of State declares that the U.S.-India partnership is founded on a shared commitment to freedom and democratic principles. With India as a close ally, friction could arise. This thesis aims to explore how India is portrayed in American media, to get a broader understanding of how Americans view India and Narendra Modi. Many scholars believe policy is based on people’s opinions, and people’s opinions are largely based on how the media portrays certain issues. The author also draws a comparison between American right-leaning media outlets and left-leaning media outlets to examine if there are any differences regarding the depiction of India between them. By performing a quantitative content analysis, the author aims to examine how American media portrays India, its leaders, and democracy. The layout of the study is based on exanimating 175 published articles about India and coding them via a codebook designed to measure democratic values and the depiction of Narendra Modi, his government, and party BJP. The findings suggest that when democratic values are depicted in articles about India, it is mostly in negative terms. On the other hand, the portrayal of Narendra Modi, his government, and his party are more balanced. The findings also suggest that right-leaning and left-leaning media have a very similar way of portraying India, its democracy, and Narendra Modi.

At no point in the apocryphal text does Judith, a wise and beautiful Jewish widow, sit on Holofernes, the Assyrian general laying siege to her city. Yet, in 1525, Barthel Beham, a young artist from Nuremberg, created Judith Seated on the Body of Holofernes, an engraving in which a voluptuous nude Judith sits atop Holofernes’s nude torso. Neither the textual nor the visual traditions explain Beham’s choice to perch the chaste woman on top of her slain enemy, so what sources inspired the printmaker? What is the meaning of Judith’s provocative position? The tiny printed image depicts the relationship between a male figure and a female figure. Thus, in order to appreciate the complexity of that relationship, I begin this thesis by reviewing what it meant to be a man and what it meant to be a woman in early sixteenth-century Germany. Because gender roles and the dynamics between the sexes were so complex, I encourage scholars to reevaluate Weibermacht (Power of Women) imagery. The nudity of Beham’s Judith and her intimate proximity to Holofernes suggest that Judith Seated on the Body of Holofernes is a Weibermacht print. In fact, Judith’s pose specifically echoes that of Phyllis riding Aristotle, a popular Weibermacht narrative. The combined eroticism of Judith’s exposed body and her compromising position would have appealed broadly to male viewers, but Beham likely targeted an erudite audience of well-educated, affluent men when he designed the multivalent print. Through close visual analysis and careful consideration of which prints circulated in early sixteenth-century Nuremberg, I argue that Beham’s Judith resembles witches riding backwards on goats, crouching Venuses, and a woman in the “reverse-cowgirl” sex position. Admittedly, it is impossible to know which sources Beham studied in preparation for Judith Seated on the Body of Holofernes, but I am inclined to believe that he wanted each of those jocular references to enrich the meaning of his work, providing a witty commentary on the power of women. But regardless of the artist’s intentionality, I think visually literate viewers would have recognized and enjoyed decoding the layers of meaning in Beham’s odd engraving. / text

No description available.