In nationalism studies, there has been insignificant analysis of the politics of imagining nations. This thesis addresses this lacuna in an examination of the form and design of imagined nations in Scotland and Quebec. I argue that the Scottish National Party and the Parti Quebecois have, since their advent in the 1960s, created a political-civic image of the nation that breaks with previous cultural conceptions. However, cultural images of the nation, propagated by centralist institutions, remain entrenched in contemporary Scotland and Quebec. The juxtaposition of centralist cultural images and nationalist political images of the nation have led to a dualistic, or what I have termed a 'Jekyll and Hyde', national consciousness in both countries. This exercise indicates that images of the nation are subject to multitudinous interpretations and (re)construction by various actors in the competitive state-nation political arena.

The 17 July 1863 saw a British military force led by Major General Cameron, with Crimean War experience, invade the Waikato of Aotearoa New Zealand, and essentially ending for Waikato Maori on 2 April 1864 at Orakau when Cameron with 1,200 troops, defeated a group of 300 Maori that included representatives of at least nine iwi, and women and children, led by Rewi Maniapoto.In December 1863, well before the events of Orakau, the New Zealand Settlements Act of 1863 (NZSA) was passed into law. This Act’s only purpose was to confiscate 1,408,400 hectares of land from Maori; 486,500 hectares from Waikato Maori, of whom Ngati Maniapoto are an important part. The Act deprived Maori of their traditional lands and the means to participate in the economy, with serious social and economic consequences for them well into the 20th century.In 1993, tertiary educational status was granted to what was essentially an initiative of the people of Ngati Maniapoto that began in 1983 to provide educational alternatives to young people, predominately Maori. This initiative became Te Wananga o Aotearoa (TWOA). Over a period of six years from 1998, TWOA moved from being an insignificant tertiary educational institution to the largest in the country in terms of student and equivalent full time student numbers. By mid 2005, TWOA was under the control of the State, the first time such a situation had occurred in this country, and completely contrary to the independence provisions that the Education Act 1989 bestows on tertiary educational institutions.This thesis is an examination of the State’s battle for control of TWOA, to consider likely reasons why the State sought this control, and the tactics used by the State to achieve this outcome.The thesis examines the part that knowledge and access to education plays in global economics in the late 20th and early 21st century, and will consider whether knowledge and access to education was as economically important to individuals in these times, as land was in 1863.The fact that TWOA’s success was achieved completely within the parameters of the tertiary education policies of both successive Governments since 1998 was irrelevant to the NZ Labour Party led Government of 2005. They appeared to set out on a predetermined path to gain control, in order to neutralise TWOA’s growth and to then reshape the sector to ensure that such success did not happen again. The conclusion is that what was seen as a just a small ‘window’ to get some leverage, was thrown open, and very powerful levers then used, to achieve this end.

The 17 July 1863 saw a British military force led by Major General Cameron, with Crimean War experience, invade the Waikato of Aotearoa New Zealand, and essentially ending for Waikato Maori on 2 April 1864 at Orakau when Cameron with 1,200 troops, defeated a group of 300 Maori that included representatives of at least nine iwi, and women and children, led by Rewi Maniapoto.In December 1863, well before the events of Orakau, the New Zealand Settlements Act of 1863 (NZSA) was passed into law. This Act’s only purpose was to confiscate 1,408,400 hectares of land from Maori; 486,500 hectares from Waikato Maori, of whom Ngati Maniapoto are an important part. The Act deprived Maori of their traditional lands and the means to participate in the economy, with serious social and economic consequences for them well into the 20th century.In 1993, tertiary educational status was granted to what was essentially an initiative of the people of Ngati Maniapoto that began in 1983 to provide educational alternatives to young people, predominately Maori. This initiative became Te Wananga o Aotearoa (TWOA). Over a period of six years from 1998, TWOA moved from being an insignificant tertiary educational institution to the largest in the country in terms of student and equivalent full time student numbers. By mid 2005, TWOA was under the control of the State, the first time such a situation had occurred in this country, and completely contrary to the independence provisions that the Education Act 1989 bestows on tertiary educational institutions.This thesis is an examination of the State’s battle for control of TWOA, to consider likely reasons why the State sought this control, and the tactics used by the State to achieve this outcome.The thesis examines the part that knowledge and access to education plays in global economics in the late 20th and early 21st century, and will consider whether knowledge and access to education was as economically important to individuals in these times, as land was in 1863.The fact that TWOA’s success was achieved completely within the parameters of the tertiary education policies of both successive Governments since 1998 was irrelevant to the NZ Labour Party led Government of 2005. They appeared to set out on a predetermined path to gain control, in order to neutralise TWOA’s growth and to then reshape the sector to ensure that such success did not happen again. The conclusion is that what was seen as a just a small ‘window’ to get some leverage, was thrown open, and very powerful levers then used, to achieve this end.

M.A. (History) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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This thesis offers an account of the history and effects of three curriculum projects sponsored by the Australian Human Rights Commission between 1983 and 1986. Each project attempted to improve observance of human rights in and through Australian schools through participatory research (or critical educational science). That is, the research included, as a conscious feature, the effort to develop new forms of curriculum work which more adequately respect the personal and professional rights of teachers, especially their entitlement as persons and professionals to participate in planning, conducting and controlling the curriculum development, evaluation and implementation that constitutes their work. In more specific terms, the Australian Human Rights Commission's three curriculum projects represented an attempt to improve the practice and theory of human rights education by engaging teachers in the practical work of evaluating, researching, and developing a human rights curriculum. While the account of the Australian Human Rights Commission curriculum project is substantially an account of teachers1 work, it is a story which ranges well beyond the boundaries of schools and classrooms. It encompasses a history of episodes and events which illustrate how educational initiatives and their fate will often have to set within the broad framework of political, social, and cultural contestation if they are to be understood. More exactly, although the Human Rights Commission's work with schools was instrumental in showing how teachers might contribute to the challenging task of improving human rights education, the project was brought to a premature halt during the debate in the Australian Senate on the Bill of Rights in late 1985 and early 1986. At this point in time, the Government was confronted with such opposition from the Liberal/National Party Coalition that it was obliged to withdraw its Bill of Rights Legislation, close down the original Human Rights Commission, and abandon the attempt to develop a nationwide program in human rights education. The research presents an explanation of why it has been difficult for the Australian Government to live up to its international obligations to improve respect for human rights through education. More positively, however, it shows how human rights education, human rights related areas of education, and social education might be transformed if teachers (and other members of schools communities) were given opportunities to contribute to that task. Such opportunities, moreover, also represent what might be called the practice of democracy in everyday life. They thus exemplify, as well as prefigure, what it might mean to live in a more authentically democratic society.

In this comparative study of the two regions, Catalonia and Scotland, the party manifestos of the nationalistic parties will be compared, through an ideological point of view. In 2014 media gave attention to the two referendums, that the countries held quite close to each other. Europe were waiting with tension on the first elections results. The Scottish people voted no to independence from the United Kingdom. The Catalan people still went to the polls with high anticipation for independence for Catalonia, eventhough Spain had called the referendum illegal due to being against the constitution.   In order to make a comparison between, the Scottish National Party and the coalition party Junts pel Sí, an ideological analysis has been made. The aim with the study is to see similarities and differences between the two regions’ nationalistic movements and also to tell them apart from other nationalistic movements, by defining the ideological type. The results show that they are both quite nationalistic in their nature, meaning that they both would prefer independence. However, the Scottish National Party is less striving for independence and seek more to have greater influence in the parliament at Westminster. The Catalan nationalistic coalition party, on the other hand, strongly wants  independence. They desire a liberal democracy with an open Catalan market to the world, by international partnerships, and memberships with important international organs like the EU.   Eventhough much might speak for the nationalistic movements’ similarities, many interesting and diverse differences were found. These discoveries are important because all nationalistic movements aren’t the same and shouldn’t be seen as such.

This case study focuses on wind power development in Norrköping using a multi-level governance approach. The aim is to examine the wind power decision-making process from the state to Norrköping municipality and to identify other factors that impact wind power development in the area. A textual analysis comparing national political party platforms and local parties' official stances and interviews has been used to achieve this study's goal. The study shows that the decision-making in vertical multi-level governance is both bottom-up and top-down. It also sheds light on a significant role the Swedish Armed Forces play in this process as an external actor. The study concludes that vertical multi-level governance, including municipal veto, although an important factor, needs to be complemented with external factors to see how it affects wind power development in Norrköping.

The National Party was active in the Czech politics roughly from 2000 to 2009.Despite the fact that the party had great political ambitions, it did not make any major electoral gains. The National Party is described in detail in chapters devoted to the formation of the National Party, its political agenda, ideological classification, to individuals and organizations participating in the establishment of the National Party, its political marketing, and the results of the National Party in the elections and international cooperation. The thesis addresses the following research questions: Why was the party unsuccessful? Concerning political marketing, were the selected communication channels adequate and was the way the party communicated correct? and Is there demand for a similar party in the Czech Republic at the moment?. We will answer the questions raised by applying a theoretical framework based on Cas Mudde's publication Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe and Alina Polyakova's study Explaining Support for Radical Right Parties in New Democracies: The Limits of Structural Determinants and the Potentiality of Civil Society, and also by conducting a survey which will research citizens' stands on various political issues.

Senior thesis "The development of electoral support of far-right parties in Slovakia during 2010-2016 and factors influencing this support" examines the development of electoral support of Slovak National Party and People's Party Our Slovakia using some of the tools of electoral support geography. The theoretical part is dedicated to existing definitions of extreme right-wing parties through which the choice of parties for further examination is made. The analytical part is split into two parts: the first classifies electoral support through the method of region and core of electoral support. At the same time, the first part defines regions which have had a stable electoral support throughout the entire observed period. All findings are presented in a cartographic form. Using an array of statistical tools, the latter part takes on the task of correlating the results of elections, in regards to far-right parties, with selected demographic characteristics of municiplaties, which are assumed to have positive impact upon the income of far-right parties.