The purpose of this study was to investigate the causes and the ramifications of the political conflict in Ivory Coast from 2002 to 2009. A purposive sampling was used to select fourteen respondents. Qualitative methodology was used for the study. The data collection instruments were semi-structured interview questions, open-ended Semi-structured questionnaire and documentary analysis. The analysed data revealed that the causes of the conflict were: competition for scarce resources, bad governance, media incitement, xenophobia, incessant political power struggle and the proliferation of small fire arms entering the country. The effects experienced during the conflict were human rights violation, destruction of property including UN premises and displaced people both internally and externally. Some recommendations made include: Efforts should be made by the Government to strengthen good relationship among different ethnic groups and help them adapt to new challenges that confront democratic developments in the country. The Government should organise the South African style of Truth and Reconciliation Commission to revisit the horrors of the past in order to heal wounds and prevent future occurance of the conflict. Employment opportunities and other income generationg ventures for Ivorian should be created by the Government by attracting local and foreign investors. The numerous rebels should be given special skills training in other for them to be able to live among the communities in Ivory Coast. Government of national unity should be encouraged in situation like this. ECOWAS as well as AU should make sure that when disarmament instituted, it should be done properly. They should always monitor it and not to allow the arms to get into the country again. It is the hope of the researcher that this study makes a contribution towards the prevention of similar conflicts in Africa in the future.

This contribution to the understanding of the dynamics of domination and resistance will focus on the nature and development of Irish language activism in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the subsequent response of the British State when faced with this challenge to its cultural hegemony. The research is theoretically framed using Raymond Williams’ model of cultural hegemony and James Scott's model of disguise and surveillance, and is based on fifteen months of in-depth fieldwork in Northern Ireland, which I undertook from February 13, 1990 to May 10, 1991. It has been argued that not all Irish language activism is revolutionary, but instead, to use Williams' terminology, has both alternative and oppositional ideologies as major components. While both alternative and oppositional Irish language activists have recovered the Irish language as "an effective element of the present," and are using it to challenge the legitimacy of British cultural hegemony in Northern Ireland, the difference lies in their ultimate goals. Alternative Irish language activists are seeking a permanent space for the Irish language in Northern Ireland, regardless of the political outcome of the present conflict. On the other hand, oppositional Irish language activists, have made the Irish language an integral part of their struggle for self-determination. Alternative Irish language activists have focused their efforts on demanding that the public status of the Irish language be raised, and on building an Irish-medium education system that would be the foundation of a permanent Irish language infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Central to oppositional Irish language activism is the struggle for the cultural and linguistic rights of republican prisoners. However, the State justifies the shunning of these demands by citing the security risk they may engender. Oppositional Irish language activists, in particular Sinn Fein (the political wing of the Republican Movement), have adopted a strategy of "encouraging" and “supporting" alternative Irish language groups, thus creating the a priori appearance of a common goal. Since Sinn Fein does not assume a direct leadership role within the Irish language movement, any refusal of the cultural demands of alternative Irish language activists by testate, can be labelled as discriminatory toward the legitimate cultural rights of an ethnic minority. Hence, efforts by the State to dismiss the challenge by alternative Irish language activists by branding it as revolutionary, have been ineffectual. British cultural hegemony in Northern Ireland, it is argued, is both powerful and vulnerable. The reaction of the British State to the challenge of Irish language activists has varied, at times with its interpretation of the challenge, and at other times seemingly at will. Prior to 1980, attempts were made to exclude the Irish language and culture from Northern Ireland, branding it as "foreign” and "subversive." Since 1989, the approach of the British State has been a re-interpretation of the Irish language and culture into the Northern Ireland context, recognizing it as one of the "two traditions" of the State. This move to neutralize Irish language resistance, while welcomed by many alternative Irish language activists, has seriously ruptured the unity of the majority in Northern Ireland. As a result, the British government finds itself at an impasse. Because of strong oppositional and alternative Irish language resistance, the State is prevented from "excluding" Irish language and culture in Northern Ireland, but similarly, differences within influential and dominant groups will not allow the conciliation of Irish language resistance by a “process of incorporation." The stage is thus set for an examination of the background, growth, and durability of the Irish language movement, juxtaposed with the hegemonic determination of a State bent on cultural subjugation, in the boisterous environment of Northern Ireland. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

The conventional method for studying media systems has been to analyse the relationship between media and politics, based on Hallin and Mancini's (2004) seminal research Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Their approach automatically places the nation-state as the key unit of analysis to understand why media systems are the way they are and why they change. Research that has advanced this endogenous method of analysis in countries outside of the Western, democratically advanced context, has brought to light the importance of including external factors in studying media systems. Building off this analytical direction, this thesis introduces three new external factors; foreign aid, the conditionalities attached to foreign aid, and the role of externally created Pan-African media policy agreements Using a case study of Malawi, a small aid-dependent country in Southeast Africa, this research interrogates these three factors to reveal that foreign aid is a coercive foreign policy tool that has been used for manipulating change and shaping the type of media Malawi has. Based on the country's recent transformation from its authoritarian populist past towards the dominant liberal media model in 2012, this research also reassesses Hallin and Mancini's convergence thesis, which claimed that most countries are 'naturally' heading towards the dominant liberal media model. Therefore, the general conclusions drawn from this thesis indicate that media systems analysis is best accomplished through detailed empirical case studies, which not only rely on historical insights, but synthesise the role that media, politics and foreign intervention play collectively, especially in the era of neoliberal capitalism. By moving beyond the parameters of the nation-state in this way, and examining what external forces that are extraterritorial to the nation-state, it is hoped that media systems researchers will engage more critically with factors that are opaque, and view variables such as foreign intervention as instrumental in future media system research.

This thesis interrogates how China influences one of its neighboring regions, Southeast Asia, in the aspect of media. Issues of how China's growing influence extends to media coverage and framing of news involving China and China's engagement in Southeast Asia have been brought up but has not been examined with empirical evidence. The research questions of this thesis concern how China is presented in local reporting in Southeast Asian media and why it is framed as it is portrayed in news media in the region. This research considers whether China's political and financial interests through media ownership, funding, soft power, and other factors are exerting influence on media coverage in Southeast Asia. Drawing on theoretical contributions from the theory of the political economy of media, comparative media systems theory and the theory of public diplomacy, the thesis assesses the situations based on a case study of the Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia by collecting and analyzing empirical data from these three Southeast Asian countries. The mix-method approach has been adopted in this study, which includes a quantitative content analysis on the news content of the selected Southeast Asian newspapers, and a qualitative analysis depending on semi-structured interviews with local media practitioners who share their understanding of journalistic routines and personal experiences in reporting China-related news in the field study. Some noteworthy findings have been drawn from the analysis. China has observable impacts on the media content in the Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia, limited to certain aspects in relation to China's growing regional power. Philippine newspapers adopt considerably more negative frames than newspapers of Thailand and Cambodia. There are unwritten guidelines in their news outlets and certain principles that media practitioners in Southeast Asia need to follow when covering China-related issues.

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This study investigates the strategies and policy impacts of the environmental, family farm, and sustainable agriculture groups in the 1990 farm bill legislation. In spite of "genuine" interest in a fundamental policy reform, and in spite of a common agenda, the three different types of interest groups mostly opted for parochial, incremental policy demands. This self-restrictive interest group behavior and the groups' limited impacts on policy outcomes is explained by organizational limitations and self-interests of the challenging interest groups as well as by institutional protection of the American political system. This protection specifically applies to the agricultural domain with its distinctive farm bill construction. <u>New and potentially challenging farm bill interest groups have not been agents for fundamental policy change</u>, as the policy status quo (old policies as well as governmental inaction) is structurally protected. / Master of Arts