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This thesis is concerned with the identification, description, analysis and evaluation of the rhetorical strategies and tactics of the Black Panther Party as a specific social-change movement from 1966 to 1973. Evidence is presented to indicate that the rhetorical strategies and tactics of the Black Panther Party played a vital role in the movement's rise and decline and that their choice of a power orientation and a rhetoric of coercion brought about the decline of the movement. This study also indicates that rhetoric in a social movement is of crucial importance to the development of the movement's ideology, leadership, membership, and methods for effecting change.

The following thesis is an analysis of the self-narratives of the parties in the Swedish Riksdag and how these are used to construct the identities of the parties. For this purpose, we studied narrative theory and theories about identity in order to build a framework which would allow us to investigate the narratives of these parties. To identify the core narratives of the parties, we chose to focus on their respective party programs. Based on the results of our quantitative investigation, we chose four parties (Socialdemokraterna, Liberalerna, Miljöpartiet, and Sverigedemokraterna) to study in a more in-depth manner. Having selected these four parties, we utilized theories about narrative and identity in order to identify the constituent parts of the various parties' narratives contained in their party programs. The parties were found to adhere to our theoretical assumptions about how parties ought to construct narratives, albeit in different ways from party to party.

This thesis explores the influence of the Australian Labor Party's (ALP's) national factions on Party policy. The specific emphasis is on policy development during Labor's 1996-2004 period in opposition. Through a total of 88 interviews, predominantly with members of Caucus including Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham, this thesis has been able to examine not only the formal policy development processes but, significantly, also the informal processes within the Party. The thesis begins with an overview of the national factions' organisation and operations in relation to policy development in both the organisational and parliamentary wings. It concentrates on exploring how the informal processes of the faction system dominate the formal Party structures, and demonstrates how the factional elite control these decision-making forums. The thesis then concentrates on analysing in-depth the factional influences on policies developed within the Immigration, Trade and Family and Community Services portfolios. These case studies were selected because they provoked debate, to varying degrees, in the Party. An understanding of how consensus was reached among the diverse perspectives, particularly between the factions, within the Party is critical to exploring the relationship between the national factions and policy development. The case studies cover a range of policy development modes, and therefore provide ample opportunity to explore factional dynamics in relation to policy formulation under different circumstances throughout the 1996-2004 period. This thesis utilises Arend Lijphart's theory of the Politics of Accommodation, which was originally developed to explain inter-party negotiations within the Dutch coalition government during the twentieth century. This theory is relevant to the study of the ALP's modern factions because, similar to the Dutch political system, the faction system operates on the power-sharing principle of proportional representation (PR). By applying Lijphart's theoretical framework, this thesis provides a rigorous and comprehensive analysis of the ALP's factional dynamics in relation to policy. It gives an in-depth analysis of the elite control of the faction system in the domain of policy development. It demonstrates that faction leaders resolve contentious policy issues by negotiating in a 'spirit of accommodation' and when the factions adopt a policy position, the unwritten rules of the 'factional game' are applied to ensure the national factions reach a consensus on Party policy. Given that the national factions compete for power and sometimes pursue a different set of policy objectives, this 'spirit of accommodation' appears to be paradoxical; this palliative application of factional power is arguably in contrast to the general perception of faction politics. Through the presentation and analysis of original primary data this thesis makes a valuable contribution to the study of the ALP and factions in general, significantly advancing existing knowledge.

<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>

The relationship between a party leadership and party activists is often illustrated by the use of John May’s "Law of curvilinear opinion structures in political parties", i.e. the idea that mid-level party activists are assumed to be more radical than both party sympathisers and the party elite. This tension between party leadership and party activists can be assumed to lead to a restriction on the party leadership’s freedom of action. However, in recent years we have seen a number of examples where political parties have made major realignments of their own policies without any substantial internal conflicts. Given the role assigned to conditions for involvement in the formulation of May's Law it appears reasonable to look in that direction when trying to understand these changes. This study covers the Moderate Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party in Sweden. The offer made by the parties to their members can be understood in terms of collective goods, such as ideological and political community, and selective goods, such as elected offices. This thesis shows how the political involvement for the interviewed party activists is intimately linked to selective goods. This finding can help us to understand ideological and political changes in present-day parties. If, as a party activist, one is attracted by the opportunities to become an elected representative or the opportunities to exercise political power, it is reasonable to imagine that one will be more inclined to support actions that increase the opportunity to enjoy these goods. Since both the party leadership and the party activists are attracted by the selective goods offered by the party organisation, the conflict between these groups decreases, as both groups are focused on winning elections and exercising political power. The result of this study therefore provides grounds for questioning the ideas of a tension between party activists and party leaderships.

This thesis aims to study the indirect effects of the Europeanization on national parties and the presence of an established national opposition towards the European Union (EU) and its effects in Sweden, as a result of the so-called conflict of Vaxholm.   The questions asked were whether or not it existed an established national opposition towards the EU, and if so, what the opposition consists of substantially. The research method, which was used, is a quantified text analysis on the chamber debates of the Swedish Riksdag and the party congresses of Socialdemokraterna. The study shows that there is an ambivalent opposition towards the EU and its effects in the aftermath of the conflict of Vaxholm.  Socialdemokraterna presented resistance, but did not manage to present apparent alternatives, which left the party with a rather indistinctive opposition. In contrast to the right-wing party, the left-wing party had some profound difficulties in positioning itself in the new and globalized economy. I therefore suggest, that it might be more providing and exhaustive to introduce Azmanova’s ideal-type analysis, which instead of positing parties on a left-right continuum, posit parties after respective party’s opinions concerning the risks or opportunities which the EU and the internal market’s effects.

This thesis examines the impact that third-party identity and techniques have on mediation outcome. The roles of the OAS and the Carter Center in the negotiations between the Venezuelan government and the opposition (DC), during the period 2002-2003, and the implementation of the agreement in 2004 are compared as representing track I and track II actors and styles. Using a process-tracing methodology, five conflict mappings and stages of conflict are combined with the results of focused interviews to main participants of the negotiation process. The analysis shows a significant impact of third-party identity and strategies on the outcome of mediation. Moreover, the outcome is more likely to be successful when track II actors, actually track I ½, participate as mediators in the actual negotiations. The most effective strategies used by third parties, dependent on the timing of the intervention and the stage of conflict, are communication and formulation strategies.

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Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Paris III, 1978. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 787-823).