The author employs research skills from law, history and religion in order to present an account of the relations of law and religion in Oregon's history from its earliest days to the present.

In 1928 Hipo´lito lrigoyen was the most popular President that the Argentine people had elected. Two years later his popularity had evaporated and a few hundred military cadets ousted the government. The reasons go beyond this two-year period. Argentina, contrary to popular belief, did not have a democratic tradition. The nation had been ruled by the dominant economic interests up to 1916. In 1916, Hipo´lito Irigoyen was elected to his first term. The people expected him to provide them with a decent and honorable life. But in choosing the legal path of elections instead of revolution Irigoyen pre-empted any revolutionary social changes. In 1928, Irigoyen, at 76, surprised his opponents and won a second term. He was loved by the people as he had embodied their spirit. But lrigoyen considered his victory as a mandate from the people, not an election. As the ends justified the means, the government operated on the margin of legality. lrigoyen had abandoned the principles that he had fought to maintain for over thirty years. This could have been tolerated if lrigoyen had enacted some pervasive social measures to maintain his support. Instead he permitted the usurped power to remain idle. The governmental processes slowed to a snail's pace. Appointments were not made, contracts were not signed, payments were not made while the President was intent upon increasing his power for power alone. The governmental inactivity and usurpations caused a wave of political unrest which culminated in the military golpe de estado of September 6, 1930.

This examination explores the Viennese cultural milieu at the turn of the century in an effort to show the commonality of backgrounds and interests among those who created the culture during that period. In this the study aims at illustrating the similarities among those artists, intellectuals, and politicians in spite of the fact that their ideas helped lay the basis for the breakdown in integration of twentieth century culture which was illustrated by Carl E. Schorske in his Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture. All this is in pursuance of the overall issue of the origin of the ideas which have dominated this century, an issue dealt with only tangentially in this study.

This thesis explores the intellectual history of editor, writer, and philosopher, Paul Piccone and Telos, an independent journal of contemporary critical theory, which he founded in 1968. Born in Italy, Piccone lived most of his life in the United States, earning his Ph.D. in philosophy at SUNY-Buffalo in 1970. Piccone served as Telos’ editor and a major contributor from 1968 to 2004. This thesis follows the trajectory of his thought by contextualizing his writing within the broader world of Marxist, and eventually post-Marxist, political philosophy. Telos also concerned itself with modern interpretations of historical dialectics and early 20th-century Marxist philosophy. Piccone himself predicated much of his philosophy on Husserlian phenomenology, which stresses concrete experiences, and his writing therefore stands at a unique confluence of Husserl and Marx. Piccone ultimately became a leading exponent of anti-Liberal philosophy and the theory of artificial negativity, which examines capitalist hegemony in both material and socio-historical terms.

In Virginia following the Civil War, white and black people formed complex and shifting alliances based on their own self-interests that cut across the lines of established political parties. In this turbulent atmosphere, William Mahone forged a new biracial political coalition called the Readjuster Party in order to transform Virginia’s economy so that it would be competitive in the years to come. Chapter One argues that Mahone’s experience as a soldier and railroad man gave him the political clout needed to enter politics and an industrial vision for Virginia’s future that was markedly different from many of his contemporaries. Chapter Two argues that William Mahone’s leadership of the Readjuster Party, and its advocacy of universal male suffrage and economic reform, created a new political center in Virginia and demonstrates that the actions of both white and black people cannot be viewed as a monolith in the postwar era. Chapter Three demonstrates how William Mahone’s political career was excluded from white Virginians’ narrative of Reconstruction following his death because it provided a historical example of African American suffrage and an attempt to establish fair elections that clashed with Virginia’s established white supremacist social order.

“Shattered Communities: Soldiers, Rabbis, and the Ostjuden during Occupation: 1915-1918" addresses the interethnic experience in Poland during the German occupation of 1915-1918. This dissertation demonstrates that the German design for 'modernization' of the East began with the First World War, which envisioned the Jews as a critically vital component, rather than an obstacle to their success. The German military made its connection to the peoples in the East via its own army rabbis and Jewish administrators. This work examines the role of the German Army rabbis, in 1915, in establishing a Jewish press and Jewish schools, along with Jewish relief agencies funded by German Jewish businessmen, in assisting the local Ostjuden communities. By the time the guns stopped firing in 1918, however, the German government had reneged on their promises of recognition and help, and the circumstances of many Ostjuden were as precarious as they had been before the war. Even worse, the experience of war in the East encouraged the rise of racist nationalism in Germany and Eastern Europe. The roots of Nazi policies toward Jews were planted firmly in Poland and Lithuania between 1915 and 1918. But for defeat in the war, it is highly unlikely that the Nazis would ever have risen to power, and in the absence of the German experience of war in the East, the later commitment to a Jewish genocide might never have been imagined. By examining the transnational relationship between the Germans and the Polish Jewish communities during the Great War, I contribute to a better understanding of the complexities leading to the crucial fracture that took place under the pressure of total war in 1917.

Historians have traditionally emphasized the sharp differences between Herbert Hoover’s vision of an associational state and the activism of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. This dissertation highlights an important area of continuity between the economic policies espoused by Hoover—during his tenures as Secretary of Commerce and President—and Roosevelt, focusing on federal efforts to promote the nascent aviation industry from the end of World War I until the passage of the Civil Aeronautics Act in 1938. These efforts were successful, and offer a unique arena in which to document the concrete gains wrought by Hoover’s associationalist ideology and Roosevelt’s New Deal. Moreover, both Hoover’s corporatist policies and New Deal efforts to create aviation infrastructure—largely through the auspices of public works agencies like the Public Works Administration and Works Progress Administration—form a striking example of the government’s ability to successfully foster the development of a new industry, even in the midst of the Great Depression. Significantly, both men’s efforts represented an alternative to nationalization, the path taken by virtually every European nation during the era. This period thus offers the opportunity to examine how both presidents’ aviation policies cohere with their larger visions of government’s proper relationship to the economy, to compare and contrast associationalism and New Deal, and to elucidate aviation’s role in promoting American economic development. During these years government actions expanded from having literally no engagement with commercial aviation to subsidizing airmail routes, creating a regulatory infrastructure to promote safe operations by licensing pilots, inspecting aircraft, approving manufacturing operations, and aggressively promoting flying to the American people. Contextualized by the American public’s well-documented enthusiasm for flying—particularly after Charles Lindbergh’s famous New York-to-Paris flight in 1927—these federal actions created America’s modern air transport network, culminating in the passage of the seminal Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, the construction and improvement of almost a thousand airports around the country, and the growth of a core group of airlines, including United, Delta, and American, that still dominate commercial flying today.

In the fall of 1859, John Brown launched a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and in so doing arguably fired the first salvo of the Civil War. That his raid occurred in the border area between North and South should come as no surprise because it was in that area where Americans were the most divided. Citizens across the border state region–that area that comprised the lower North and upper South–soon found themselves caught between two hostile sections. Based on an analysis of letters, journals, newspapers, and public documents, this dissertation is a study of one portion of that border region, the central Ohio River Valley, during the momentous years between Brown’s raid and the early weeks of 1862, when Indiana Senator Jesse Bright was expelled from the United States Senate for treasonous behavior. Citizens who lived in the river counties between Cincinnati and Louisville shared important economic, cultural, and socio-political views that united them and created a regional bond capable of withstanding the centrifugal pull of sectionalism despite the omnipresent influence of slavery. These trans-river bonds moderated their response to secession and reinforced their Unionist proclivities. Their fidelity to the Union strengthened Abraham Lincoln’s hand and helped to insure that the Union would endure.

The aim of this dissertation is to describe and analyse the voting restrictions of the Swedish franchise reform of 1909. These restrictions required that the voter should be a male of good repute, who had paid his national and local taxes for three years before the election year, had done his military service, had not been declared incapacitated or bankrupt nor owed society any poor relief. In practice, this meant that some 20% of the adult male population were excluded from voting. This study explores both the ideological beliefs and political strategies behind these restrictions, and how the system worked in practice at the national and local levels. Since earlier literature has paid scant attention to the voter’s status as a citizen, this dissertation uses citizenship as one of its analytical tools. Although often described as universal suffrage for men, the 1909 Electoral Law was thus less radical than is usually assumed. As you had to have fulfilled certain obligations as a citizen in order to vote, it is hard to say that voting was a right. A central role in formulating these new conditions was played by the Riksdag’s moderate Conservative group. The reform therefore had the potential to preserve the political influence of the Right in the age of mass democracy, not least as the question of the unrestricted franchise for men and women could be deferred. However, the 1909 Electoral Law was not only aimed at reducing the political influence of the lower classes, but the proponents of the system also wanted to educate the citizens ideologically by constructing an image of the ideal citizen as a self-supporting male, who fulfilled his obligations to society. The National Women’s Franchise Association, whose campaign demanded suffrage for women on the same conditions as men, therefore had to relate to a political discourse dominated by (male) civic virtues and qualifications, and argue that women made a major contribution by fulfilling their special obligations to society. Also, the tax payment and poor relief voting restrictions in the 1909 franchise reform had an impact on the way proposals for women’s right to vote were formulated. The Social Democrats, whose electorate was heavily affected by the taxpaying qualification, in their programme for a constitutional reform demanded that this particular restriction should be abolished. To limit the number of party voters excluded from the polls, Social Democratic newspapers and election offices tried to mobilise disenfranchised workers to appeal the electoral register and get back on it. Those activities, which have been largely neglected in earlier research on the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, came to constitute an important element in the party’s election campaigns during the 1910s. In Sweden, the poor relief voting restriction (the pauper exclusion) was applied in a much more general way than in other countries, disqualifying recipients of very small or provisional amounts that had not been repaid as well as family providers who had received poor relief because of family members. The rules also proved very difficult to put into practice. The Social Democrats and many Liberals, but also leading members of the Swedish Poor Relief Association wanted to reform the law so that only those permanently supported by poor relief should lose their right to vote. Unlike the Social Democrats, the Liberals supported the taxpaying qualification as a necessary token of orderliness. However, they wanted the conscientious poor taxpayers to be distinguished from those who were neglectful and dilatory. As the Liberal-Social Democratic coalition government, which came to power in 1917, found out, this proved impossible. Instead, the taxpaying qualification was abolished in connection with the 1918-1921 constitutional reform, which also gave women the vote and limited the poor relief voting restriction to those permanently receiving support. In sum, the 1909 franchise reform did not constitute a sharp divide between the old system of income and property qualifications and twentieth century democracy. There was a clear continuity with the former system, in which you earned the right to vote by fulfilling your obligations. The 1909 reform did not lead to universal suffrage for men. Instead, it should be regarded as an intermediate stage in the development towards universal suffrage. Property and income qualifications for voters were abolished, but new qualifications and new mechanisms for exclusion were introduced instead. In this respect, Sweden was not unique. Before adopting universal suffrage, many countries combined universal suffrage with various voting restrictions. In Sweden, however, the right to vote came with an unusually large number of conditions.

THE MEXICAN HYDRA: HOW CALDERÓN’S PURSUIT OF PEACE LED TO THE BLOODIEST WAR IN MEXICAN HISTORY. WILL THE MEXICAN PEOPLE INHERIT A FAILED STATE IN 2012? Abstract Marco Antonio Pinon-Farah The drug-war in Mexico (2006-present) has accelerated at a chilling rate, claiming the lives of 35,000 Mexican people. Since President Felipe Calderón assumed office, Mexico has been battling an internal beast unlike any it has known, the Mexican Hydra. Like the mythical creature, the Mexican cartels have proven capable of not only combating the government forces, but also of regenerating and strengthening themselves in the face of increasing government scrutiny and the loss of several prominent Mexican cartel leaders. Feuding between individual cartels and the Mexican government continue to maintain a significant portion of the country, particularly the states of Chihuahua and Sinaloa, in a paralytic state of fear. Struggling to maintain the safety of all people in Mexico, the military must also contend with the reality that it is often outgunned by the increasingly powerful drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs). Given the historical accusations of corruption in Mexican judicial, military, and police authorities, this branch of the government is constantly fighting for the trust and support of the Mexican people in order to fulfill its duties and obligations. The moral guide of Mexican society since Spanish conquest, the Catholic Church, has been notably missing from the debate until recent years in which it has chosen to speak up more frequently on behalf of those who have suffered human rights violations. In recent months, the Church and the State have been working towards a partnership to publicly condemn the violence and fear that has become all too common in Mexico. This state of chaos has been further examined by the musical phenomenon, “el narcocorrido,” (drug song). Derived from the “corrido,” one of Mexico’s most valued methods of cultural expression and storytelling, this new take on the genre provides a controversial view and analysis of the Mexican drug-trafficker. Much like the American gangsta-rap genre, the narcocorrido glamorizes the lives of individuals who are considered criminals by society. With police being criticized and the government accused of corruption and abuse, the narcocorrido is a manifestation of the sentiments of many Mexican people past and present. This cultural force allows for a greater understanding of the complexity of the drug-war in Mexico, in that it is not simply a struggle between the people and the drug industry, but rather it exposes the nature of the war for what it truly is, a battle between one Mexican presidential administration and the drug trafficking industry. President Calderón’s strategy has been successful in eliminating various important Mexican DTO leaders, however it also has been responsible for a rise in violence between the cartels and government. His strategy has left thousands dead and set a precedent for future Mexican presidents in that they are now all committed to this war, for a withdrawal from the conflict would be catastrophic for the Mexican state. Calderón is already struggling to maintain his government’s legitimacy, and it is becoming increasingly true that his state verges on failure due to its inability to guarantee and protect the rights afforded to its citizens by the Mexican Constitution.