This dissertation explores whether fiscal policies can be used as a means of redistribution of power and status, and the ways of transferring state&rsquo / s economic power to social groups. In this regard, state budget is recognized as the main tool for the execution of redistributive policies of the governments. In this framework, this study investigates how budget was employed to change power balance of social groups during the period of 1980-2003, in Turkey. In order to measure the changing power balances budget expenditures and revenues are reclassified and the size of the financial resources allocated or transferred to the particular social groups are determined. The analysis of budget data demonstrated that budget in Turkey has a strong influence on redistributive politics. Regarding the policy making point of view, the traditional centralist approach was deteriorated and increasing number of parties and interest groups involved in budget mechanisms. Another finding is supporting the particular economic or social groups within the current time period or across the periods either through the withdrawal of state sector from the area of traditionally publicly provided private goods / transferring budget resources and changing the taxation policies or by borrowing.

ABSTRACT THE POLITICAL PARTIES IN GEORGIAN DEMOCRATIZATION Karadag, Yelda M.S., Department of Eurasian Studies Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ay&ccedil / a Ergun &Ouml / zbolat December 2011,181 Pages This thesis analyzes the development of the multi-party system and the role of political parties in the process of democratization in Georgia during both pre-independence and post-independence periods. The conditions shaping both the multi-party system and democratization are analyzed in the light of findings obtained through in-depth interviews with the representatives of political parties, civil society organizations and academicians in Georgia. In accordance with the post-Soviet political system, the nature of the relationship between the ruling party and the opposition is crucial. The diversification among the elite groups and the lack of pact formation among the political elite is the main reason which hinders the process of democratization. Hence, despite the Georgian political party system has numerous political parties / it is shaped in accordance with the dominant political party system.

<p>Through the increase in globalization over the last twenty years the world has become ’smaller’. The many positive aspects of the phenomenon sometimes make us overlook the negative aspects of globalization. Just as economic markets and communication has moved beyond national borders one of the most negative aspects of society has also become global, namely terrorism. As terrorism has moved on to the global spectrum so has the prevention of terrorism. National governments that are trying to combat terrorism have begun to realize that problems that other nations are facing in another continent could eventually affect their national security. Other nation states that are experiencing state failure may become a national security risk. The aim of this thesis is to examine if global terrorist organizations take advantage of the many problems that a nation faces when it is subject to state failure. It has not been to examine the phenomenon of global terrorism itself or why certain nation states fail. It has rather been to see if there is a connection between the two and if so, how do global terrorist organizations take advantage of these opportunities?</p><p>The most famous, or infamous, global terrorist organization al Qaeda has on many occasions used the fact that a state is experiencing failure to their advantage. Many of the more common problems that a failed state will face (loss of territorial control, disastrous domestic economy, and bad leadership) have been exploited by al Qaeda who have been able to build an effective infrastructure, build training cams and religious schools, and gain public support in two of the most troubled nations in the world; Afghanistan and Sudan.</p><p>The conclusion that can be drawn from this examination of the connection between global terrorism and failed states is that terrorist organizations have on several occasions taken advantage of the problems associated with state failure in order to become stronger and build a working infrastructure. It is, however, important to note that terrorism is very rarely the reason fore state failure. Furthermore, the fact that a sate is experiencing state failure does not automatically mean that it will be a breathing ground for global terrorism.</p>

At the heart of this dissertation lie two political events that hitherto have predominantly been interpreted from the perspective of the xining reform and the factional disputes that accompanied it: the so called qingli reform (1043-1045), and a ritual debate (puyi 1064-1066). One goal of this work is to assess these on their own merits, and in this way gain new insights for our understanding of Wang Anshi's failure to maintain literati consensus in the xining-period, and the nature of 11th-century socio-political associations, or factions, in general. A considerable number of counterexamples cast doubt on views that interpret opposing factions as the manifestation of pre-existing, intellectual or social structures, with firm boundaries between groups prior to the actual dispute. Instead, our discussion of said political events, and the social relationships of actors at the time showed that there were ample connections between leading figures both in the 1030s and '40s, and prior to the puyi and xining disputes. It turned out that in both periods literati networks were much more diverse and ambiguous than the later disputes would suggest, but there was one crucial difference: earlier, literati had been much more likely to reestablish working relationships with erstwhile opponents and their networks, whereas such mending of fences appeared almost impossible in the latter half of the 11th century. To explain the difference from an intellectual perspective, we have turned to an interpretation of ritual offered by Seligman et al., which due to its bearing on social relationships is pertinent to the question at hand. Drawing on a diversity of texts about ritual, as well as the actions and positions taken during the two political events, we argue that views of ritual changed during the period in question: whereas the qingli protagonists had taken ritual on its own terms, and in this way made social ritual usable to keep up and reestablish relationships through intellectual disagreements and political defeat, important later figures relegated ritual to being a part of their larger visions of integrated orders, and as a consequence it lost the mitigating potential it had had earlier. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vilken grupp människor som till största del fick komma till tals i webb-programmet Eftersnack. Deltagarna i programmet valde vi att dela in i fyra grupper, män, kvinnor, elitpersoner och personer från allmänheten. Vi undersökte också vilka typer av frågor som reportern ställde till respektive grupp. Vi analyserade om det fanns likheter eller olikheter bland frågorna till de olika grupperna. Av de 15 avsnitt som vi tog med i vår analys fick vi ett resultat som visade att männen fick mer utrymme än kvinnorna i webb-programmet. Av statusgrupperna fick elitpersonerna mest plats i programmet jämfört med personer från allmänheten. Sammanfattningsvis fick manliga elitpersoner mest utrymme i programmet. Frågorna som vi analyserade skilde sig mellan könen och statusgrupperna. Männen och elitpersonerna fick korta och mer kritiska frågor medan kvinnorna och personer från allmänheten fick öppnare och mer vaga frågor. / The purpose of this study was to see which type of persons that got to be heard in the web broadcast of the debate show Eftersnack. We divided the participants into four different groups; women, men, elite persons and members of the public. We also wanted to analyse if there were any differences in the questions asked to the different groups. In the 15 episodes we chose to analyse we found that 60 percent of the participants in the show were men. The elite persons were given more space and time than members of the public. Thus, elite men got most time to say what they wanted to say. We also found that the questions differed depending on who was asked. Men and elite persons had to answer shorter and more critical questions while the women and members of the public were given vague and open questions that were easier to answer.

Dissertation thesis analyses the ideological processes of art discourse in the last decade of the 20th century – the formation and decline of different value related and ideological orientations, and their correlation, which makes an influence upon the changing conception of art and artist. These processes are analyzed referring to the reviews of the exhibitions of the discussed period, the exhibitions themselves, the declarations by the artists, who actively participated on the art scene, and their works, which were shaping the public art life. A separate attention is devoted to various layers of the artistic field – to the sociopolitical context, the works of art, the institutional exhibitions, and to the texts in cultural periodicals. The main aim of the thesis is to make a thorough analysis of the ideological and value related changes, which took place in the Lithuanian art discourse in the 1990s, and by underlining the artistic, institutional and sociopolitical contexts to reveal the changing content of symbolic constructions and their influence on the struggles for legitimization in the artistic field. The tasks of the research are: to define the role of the postsoviet intellectual (artist) in the Lithuanian art processes during the Rebirth period and in the years of independence; to explore the forms of politics of memory, which were established in the public discourse; to define the specificity of the concept of ideology in the postsoviet society; to analyze the... [to full text] / Disertacijoje analizuojami XX a. paskutiniojo dešimtmečio meno diskurso ideologiniai procesai: skirtingų vertybinių, ideologinių orientacijų formavimasis, nykimas ir jų koreliacija, daranti įtaką meno ir menininko sampratos kaitai. Šie procesai analizuojami remiantis aptariamo laikotarpio parodų recenzijomis, pačiomis parodomis, aktyviai meno scenoje veikusių menininkų pasisakymais, jų kūriniais, formavusiais viešąjį dailės gyvenimą. Atskiras dėmesys skiriamas įvairiems meno lauko pjūviams – sociopolitiniam kontekstui, meno kūriniams, institucinėms parodoms ir tekstams kultūros savaitraščiuose. Ideologijų ir vertybių pokyčiai, vykę Lietuvos meno diskurse XX a. paskutiniajame dešimtmetyje, darbe tyrinėjami akcentuojant meninius, institucinius ir sociopolitinius kontekstus, atskleidžiant kintantį simbolinių konstrukcijų turinį bei jų poveikį meno lauko kovoms už legitimaciją. Disertacijoje keliami šie uždaviniai: apibrėžti posovietinio intelektualo (menininko) vaidmenį atgimimo ir nepriklausomybės metų Lietuvos meno procesuose; ištirti viešajame diskurse įtvirtintas atminties politikos formas; apibrėžti ideologijos sampratos specifiškumą posovietinėje visuomenėje, analizuoti ideologinį modernistinio meno pobūdį; apibrėžti pagrindinių meno institucijų ideologines nuostatas, atskleisti institucijų ideologinių susidūrimų pobūdį ir priežastis; išanalizuoti reikšmingiausias parodas ir atskleisti jų konstruotų naratyvų ideologines potekstes; atskleisti svarbiausius šio laikotarpio... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

This thesis focuses on changes in the value of educational capital over time. Taking as a point of departure Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of a multidimensional social space, the thesis examines how this value is affected when educational assets—through the democratization of education—are becoming more widespread across this space (i.e. the population). The studies are based on datasets from Statistics Sweden, comprising the complete censuses of 1960 to 1990, LISA-registers, and registers of wealth and income. Different approaches are employed: the use of the Gini-coefficient to catch changes in the distribution of education; comparative models to investigate cohorts at different points in time; and specific multiple correspondence analysis to study the distribution of several assets simultaneously.  Three aspects are explored: the distributions, returns, and uses of education. Firstly, while there is a steady increase in the average number of years of schooling, there is a different pattern in the development of the distribution of education. Three phases were distinguished: one of increasing levels of inequality, one of decreasing inequality, and one in which the inequality levelled out. Secondly, the returns of education have diminished as far as economic gains are concerned, causing a fracture between different social generations, at the same time as the returns in a wider social sense have remained relatively stable. However, the relative stability hides crucial discrepancies. Groups with the lowest level of education are further marginalized and distances between ‘economic’ and ‘cultural’ groups are growing. Thirdly, in their modes of using the educational system, there are glaring differences between the economic elite and the cultural elite, although both utilize prestigious educational institutions as sites of social reproduction. The fundamental difference consists in that exclusive educational strategies are not as necessary to the dominant fraction of the economic elite. Their children are able to choose more freely among the offers of higher education.  The paradoxical development of the value of education is that while the absolute value of educational capital has decreased in general, the differences in relative value persist.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Bielefeld, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [453]-487) and indexes.

Habilitation--Universität, Mainz, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [555]-565) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Bielefeld, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [453]-487) and indexes.