<p>This study focuses upon the adaptation of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and Moderate Party towards the European Union. Adaptation is explored by examining attitudes the political parties have on different issues related to the EU. In other words it is assumed that adaptation is dependent on attitudes, amongst other things, and the attitudes are examined by studying officially expressed opinions by the parties in party programmes and in parliamentary protocols. By expanding the study to three years possible alterations in the attitudes can be detected and something can be said on the level of adaptation the parties show towards the EU in each research question. The questions are (1)<em> Should Sweden take an active part in developing the European integration process?, </em>(2)<em> Is it believed that participation in international collaboration provides output benefits that the nation state no longer can provide?, </em>(3)<em> Is pooling of sovereignty problematic?, </em>(4) <em>Is military non-alignment important for Sweden? </em>and (5)<em> Is it important that Sweden participates in a common European security policy? </em>The three years of research are 1995, 2006 and the first half of 2010. Two of the questions are developed by utilising the fusion perspective, that is a part of the fusion approach, which is also the theoretical framework of this study.</p><p>The findings of this study show that both the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party experience attitudinal alterations in almost all the questions investigated. This causes some shifts in their level of adaption towards the European Union. Furthermore the results show that the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party are adapted towards the Union in most of the years researched.</p>

Despite calls for concerted, two-way engagement and for the development of reciprocal partnerships between institutions of higher education (IHE's) and their communities, IHE's continue to implement a disparate menu of activities that prove largely ineffective at addressing society's most challenging social and environmental problems. A relatively new conception of engagement lays out a framework by which IHE's engage with communities in democratic ways. Democratic engagement values inclusive, reciprocal problem-oriented work that brings together university and community stakeholders as co-generators of knowledge and solutions. The resulting democratically engaged partnerships position diverse members to take on roles as collaborators and problem solvers. They are mutually transformed through the processes of reciprocation, power diffusion, and knowledge generation. &lt;br&gt;How these democratically oriented roles and processes emerge and come to be enacted is unknown. Neither the literature on democratic engagement nor that on community-university partnerships addresses this gap. This dissertation study purposefully selected a case of community-university partnership that has a high degree of democratic engagement. Through interviews, observation, and document review, qualitative evidence was collected of the ways in which the roles and processes of democratically engaged partnerships emerged and were enacted. Atlas.ti 6.2 was used to code and retrieve themes related to democratic and technocratic engagement, stakeholder roles and processes, and the emergence and application of roles and processes. &lt;br&gt;Understanding how democratically oriented roles and processes emerge and are adopted is critical to building democratically engaged partnerships that support systems of democratic engagement. If we do not know how to be democratic within our partnerships, and if we cannot teach others, we will not be able to answer the calls for more purposeful, reciprocal engagement with our communities. / School of Education; / Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program for Education Leaders (IDPEL) / EdD; / Dissertation;

This dissertation examines the influence of executive ideological orientation on state foreign policy behavior. I advance an analytical model which asserts that foreign policy decisionmakers act in a manner consistent with the ideological principles presented in their political platforms, party manifestos, and their voters' expectations. Thus, I assert that within developed democracies, the further right a government is, the higher the propensity to behave more aggressively. Oppositely, the further left a government is, the more likely it is to behave more cooperatively. I empirically analyze this theoretical argument by developing three models where the foreign policy behavior is measured uniquely in each separate model. I estimate executive ideology by using two proxies: one which estimates the overall ideology of the executive while the other captures only the foreign policy dimension of executive ideology. To test the hypotheses derived from the theoretical model, I create a new dataset of responses to international crises. Foreign policy behavior is operationalized as an ordinal variable which takes into account a complex range of actions that governments take in the international arena, such as providing aid, mediation, non intervention, condemnation, sanctions, and the use of force. I employ Logit and Orderd Logit statistical analyses on a large-N cross national model. My dissertation focuses on all 22 OECD countries, during the period 1977 to 2001. The empirical findings partially support my theoretical argument, contingent upon the proxy used for executive ideology and the way state behavior is estimated. I find consistent support to my argument if executive ideology is estimated with the proxy which contains only the party manifestos' foreign policy variables.

Both the Centinel and the Republican were publishing during a period when newspapers became increasingly partisan. Editors were changing from largely nonpartisan craftsman to advocates of party policy. Newspapers aligned with the two political parties of the day, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. As statements of political ideology, these papers reveal not only partisan polarization, but also the parties’ shared ideological roots. Though the Federalists and Republicans responded to British aggression in very different ways (one wanting peace at any cost, the other militarization), their reactions paradoxically stem from a common Enlightenment theory of “universal peace,” which held republics to be inherently peaceful institutions. The patriotic poems of the Republican and the Centinel support the idea of a bipartisan reluctance to go to war that J.C.A. Stagg, George Daughan, and Alan Taylor allude to in their comprehensive histories of the war of 1812. The theory of “universal peace” made both Federalists and republicans felt that the belligerent empires were forcing the United States into a military conflict that ill-suited its republican form of government.

Abstract In this study the notion of domestic democratic peace will be examined by using a holistic understanding of internal conflicts. Domestic democratic peace has most commonly been studied by using quantitative methods. This study will be qualitative using an abductive approach when understanding why mature democracies are more stable than other types of regimes. The holistic understanding of internal conflicts used in this study is based on the concepts of relative deprivation, instrumentalisation of politics and politicisation of identity. Burton’s sources of conflict are used to show how relative deprivation can be experienced. The questions to be answered in this essay are as follow: How can the proposed holistic understanding explain why mature democracies are more stable than newly established democracies and autocratic states? - In what ways do mature democracies decrease experience of relative deprivation and thereby safeguarding Burton’s sources of conflict? - In what ways do mature democracies cater to a more peaceful process of politicisation of identity and instrumentalisation of politics?Key Words: domestic democratic peace, holistic understanding of internal conflicts, mature democracies

Community Schools in Saskatchewan offer tremendous potential for building and sustaining democratic communities. This potential is based on what is intended to be the participatory and inclusive nature of these schools. Notions of inclusion at the root of community school orientations to foster well-being emerged from a social-democratic tradition within education and have been explored to differing extents by educational, political, and social theorists. To date, few researchers have examined staff perceptions of inclusion, given the broad and nuanced definition of social inclusion I use here. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the perceptions of these individuals so critically positioned to impact the lives of children, youth and their families, and to frame them in a socio-political and critical theoretical context. In doing so, I focus on the relationship between community school policy and practice in Saskatchewan, examining inclusive processes in community schools, and applying a critical theoretical perspective that accounts for complex and dynamic trends within these schools. Using Habermass critical theory of society, I argue that both functional and communicative rationalization can be seen as converging in the body of community education literature, although functional rationalization is the more predominant, or colonizing, feature. This colonization subsequently leads to legitimation and motivation crises in Community Schooling in Saskatchewan, which can be seen in the low levels of participation of families and community members into school activities. Despite the challenges Community Schools are currently facing, I conclude there is room and opportunity for change at the school level, where stakeholders come together to reach common goals, and live out, at the local level, the ideals of community schooling.

This study examines individual-level citizen participation in the notice and comment component of federal agency rulemaking. It focuses on characteristics of individual participants ascertained through a survey mailed to 400 actual commenters. Survey data is used to evaluate the representativeness of these participants to the general public. Also, the compatible of citizen participation in rulemaking with the democratic ideals of liberty, equality, and fairness is evaluated, along with potential consequences of proposed reforms.

This dissertation investigates the effect of state capacity on the probability for democratic transition and the survival of democracies. I seek to answer these quesitons through the use of both quantitative and qualitative analysis. In my statistical models, I make use of Cox Proportional Hazard Models. These are supplemented by two case studies involving South Korea and the Philippines. My expectation, which is supported by the results presented in this study, is that higher levels of state capacity will make authoritarian regimes more stable and thus make democratic transitions less likely, but if democratic transitions take place, higher levels of state capacity will make new democratic regimes more likely to survive.

ABSTRACT Background: Schistosomiasis is a chronic parasitological disease and constitutes one of the major neglected public health problems in the word. The consequences that this disease causes in the population are subject of controversy. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of schistosomiasis in term of malnutrition, anemia and low school performance in an endemic region, naïve of interventions. Methods: The study was conducted in Kasansa health zone in Democratic Republic of Congo where schistosomiasis has been endemic for decades. School aged children were recruited at home. From each child, anthropometric measures, biological and laboratory exams were obtained. The questionnaire was used for economic status, behavior and other factors related to schistosomiasis. Regression logistic was used to control confounding factors. A 95% confidence interval was used for statistically significance. Results: The proportion of malnutrition was 53.8%, anemia 67.0% and low school performance 41.1%. In this health zone, the study found and confirmed a high proportion of children who are infected with S. mansoni (89.3%) and malaria (65.1%). Conclusions: This study showed high proportions of complications that are usually reported as associated with schistosomiasis, among school aged children in the health zone of Kasansa. Future studies are needed to show causality and to find efficient ways to control these morbidities.

This thesis focuses on the candidate selection method of the ruling party of Tanzania, Chama Cha Mapinduzi. The method was changed in 2008. Through interviews made with local politicians, state officials and voters in Babati an understanding of why and in what way the change was made is presented. The thesis also presents an understanding of in what way different stakeholders perceive this change. The changed candidate selection method is examined as part of Tanzania’s democratic consolidation. At the end of the thesis a discussion about obstacles and opportunities for a further democratic consolidation is presented.The thesis describes how the transformation of the candidate selection method is, by the party itself, presented as a way of widen democracy and fight corruption. While many of the informants believe that the transformation, at least to some extent, have contributed to increased democracy, most of them believe that the actual difference from the previous method is small, since the crucial decisions still are taken by the party elite. The informants' responses are describing a multi-party system with several major obstacles. They are also, however, describing how the situation slowly is changing for the better.