Microfinance programs

Jayaprakash Narayan

The aim of this thesis is to explore the challenges women face for vertical mobility in politics in India and Sweden, the similarities and differences. Gender empowerment and equal opportunities are essential features for an egalitarian society, development, national and international peace. Promoting gender empowerment through women’s effective participation in politics is a structural interventional approach in social work. However studies show women face numerous obstacles in achieving political representation.  Gender inequality, inequitable division of labour, cultural attitudes, electoral systems are some reasons which subjugate women and limit their representation in public life. Sweden and India differ immensely in all of these factors and more. However, similarity in these nations is the low representation of women councillors in key decision making positions in governance; resulting in exclusion of women’s interests and issues in public policy. In-depth interviews conducted with six respondents from both nations analysed in a feministic framework reveal cultural, ideological, socio-economic and political structures as common challenges. Social work interventions in all these spheres can lead to sustainable empowerment for women. Keywords; Gender empowerment, structural social work, women’s political representation, vertical mobility in politics, India,    Sweden

In recent years, there has been a burgeoning of studies related to international terrorism, many related to and resulting from current events and occurrences. However, the enterprise of terrorism scholarship within the framework of political science and international relations poses some interesting dilemmas for the discipline. While other topics in the field have received increasingly rigorous examination, the study of terrorism, comparatively, remains in a nascent stage. Though many of the tools of analysis from other areas of international relations scholarship can be re-applied tfi the study of terrorism, it appears that some must be modified and others discarded altogether. Instead of seeking to fit terrorists, and, indeed, other state actors, into the common rubric of international relations scholarship, I argue here that it is important to reconceptualize international interaction in light of the problems that such actors pose to traditional research. Thus, in the following thesis, I will explore the challenges the study of terrorism poses to researchers in the fields of international relations and political science. After discussing the theoretical foundations and quandaries of the study of international terrorism in political science, I will utilize these remarks as a groundwork for developing a game-theoretic model that incorporates some of these challenges and an econometric model to test some of its implications.

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During decades, the definitions of organizational politics are different by many researches of organizational politics. And also, the limitations of behave of organizational politics are in confusion or divisive. In an enterprise¡¦s business, the employer may demand his¡]her¡^staff to work well, however, his or her staff may work in accordance with politic behave within organization. The problems are that what kind of environment shall make the staff to act relative response to it so-called ¡§Consciousness of fact¡¨ but not for ¡§Reality of fact¡¨, and what concerns shall be involved about? These issues are worthily to study. I, the author currently serving in finance industry, I¡¦ve felt that there are great shocks generated or gave directly to the organizational tradition culture or employee¡¦s mental adjustment of finance organization since the stipulation of ¡§Finance Control Law¡¨ for which has forced the existing financial organizations to adopt combination or consolidation measures. This study has proposed two domestic and large-scale of private finance organizations for verification. The sampling of separated levels ratio is applied, 286 questionnaires were issued and 251 questionnaires were availably replied. Before final verification, these questionnaires were statistically analyzed by difference, relativity and multi-recovery etc, and following points were concluded. 1. After explorative research, the organizational politics consciousness is mainly divided as three aspects. ¡]1¡^The behave of political consciousness for high rank and colleague. ¡]2¡^The behave of political consciousness for qualification promotion policy ¡]3¡^The behave of political consciousness for silence with personal benefit. 2. The difference of individual variety to organizational politics consciousness. ¡]1¡^Age, qualification and leadership are totally have obvious difference to organizational politics consciousness. ¡]2¡^Leadership has obvious difference to the three aspects of organizational politics consciousness respectively. ¡]3¡^Age only has obvious difference to the aspect of high rank and colleague, of organizational politics consciousness. ¡]4¡^Qualification hasn¡¦t obvious different to the three aspects of organizational politics consciousness. 3. The outcome of influential assumed verification Follows were found after multi-recovery analysis¡G Individual variety¡]Markivillism, A type human characteristic, leadership¡^ Organization¡¦s construction¡]Specialization¡^ Working feature¡]Interactive relation, promotion opportunity, integration¡^ Upon explanation, the seven varieties above have 41.2% variety volume relatively to the organizational politics consciousness.

Many scholars of the Reconstruction era have examined James Webb Throckmorton??s political career between 1860 and 1867 and have revealed that his racist views helped hasten the end of Radical Reconstruction in Texas. However, these scholars have not explained the motivations behind Throckmorton??s political ideology, nor have they explained adequately the origins of the North Texan??s racism. This dissertation focuses on these critical issues by examining the development of Throckmorton??s personal and political beliefs between 1850 and 1874. It shows that Throckmorton??s political ideology was influenced by four primary factors: his early experiences on the North Texas frontier, his desire to create a community on the frontier that was primarily designed to be a haven for white settlers, his commitment to political conservatism which evolved from his early affiliation with Whig political ideology, and his quest to bring economic improvement to the North Texas region. In contrast to other scholarly works on Throckmorton which claim that the North Texan??s political views were contradictory and inconsistent, this study demonstrates that Throckmorton??s ideological beliefs remained constant and changed little over time. His commitment to preserving the whiteness of the frontier, to protecting the settlers of his home region, to conservative political ideology, and to internal improvements, especially railroads, never wavered during one of the most turbulent periods in Texas politics. This study also reinforces several important conclusions about the South in the nineteenth century: The region was never a homogeneous society; southern racism was multifaceted; and southern settlers migrating westward, especially those from the Upper South, viewed the frontier as a potential escape from the political and social dominance of large slaveholders.

Central to the distributive theory is the idea that members of Congress can use strategic committee assignments to fund pork projects for their districts. Committees that are primarily constituency service based are considered most susceptible to pork barrel politics. The Public Works and Transportation Committee, in particular, has developed a reputation for distributing pork projects. Adler??s (2002) study of six committees found impressive evidence that members of certain committees are able to channel disproportionate benefits to their districts??the lone exception was the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Given the folklore about Public Works and ??pork,?? this result seems odd. In this study, I make two major adjustments to the research design. First, I isolate the dollars spent on committee programs that were not allocated by a formula. Formulas have prior built-in controls that are not subject to bargaining after the formula has been set, and thus are not illustrative of the pork process. Second, I expand the years studied (1983-1996) and analyze the data with a pooled cross-section/time series design, which better controls the potential effects of time on the distribution of federal funds. These modifications do not produce results to reconcile the conflict with congressional folklore, instead they question the generalizability of allocation decisions for constituency service committees.

Current approaches to foreign policy decision making and international conflict have ignored the role of emotions as variables influencing foreign policy choices. However, a growing area of political research suggests that emotions are of critical importance to many aspects of political life. Predominant foreign policy decision making models currently attend to either rational calculations or ‘cold’ cognitive processes and heuristics. These models provide little theoretical space for propositions about how enduring and intense emotions such as hatred and fear influence perceptions and interpretations of interstate conflict. In this paper we propose a model which addresses this deficiency in foreign policy decision making research. A theory of emotions is introduced and integrated into the existing research on foreign policy decision making. Hypotheses pertaining to the influence of negative emotions on information processing and choice in international relations are derived from the model and tested in a multimethod setting. Findings are reported and discussed within the framework of existing empirical research on process-oriented models of foreign policy decision making.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-321). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.