This dissertation examines the transformation of Israeli peace activism since the second Intifada. Using a framework based in social movement theory it argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, not all parts of Israeli peace activism were paralysed in the period following the outbreak of the Intifada in 2000. By placing greater emphasis on the internal dynamics of social movement theory: collective action frames, tactical repertoires and mobilisation structures, and by building a three-fold typology of Israeli peace activism: a liberal Zionist component; a radical component; and a human rights component, it argues that it was only the liberal Zionist component that demobilised following the outbreak of violence in 2000. The radical and human rights component continued to mobilise, with new groups emerging, presenting alternative and innovative ways to challenge the prevailing situation. This study is based on interviews with activists in Israel, participant observation and primary data from the publications and websites of the activist groups, focusing on the period between 2000 and 2014. Through this, new empirical data to further the understanding of Israeli peace activism has been provided. This study further contributes to the literature on Israeli peace activism by unearthing new collective action frames, the evolution of tactical repertoires and a shift in the mobilising structures. Furthermore, by disaggregating the internal dynamics before analysing how they interact with the external environment, the political opportunity structures, this dissertation identifies different cycles of contention for the three components of Israeli peace activism. The empirical analysis has also led to contributions in the field of social movement theory. It shows that impact should be conceived of beyond the policy arena, with emphasis given to other areas of impact, such as mobilisation, cultural shifts and norm entrepreneurship. It also identifies a number of aspects of social movement theory that require refinement: the relationship between the government and a social movement; the connection between the international dimension and a domestic social movement; and the role of gender dynamics.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the development of an oligarchy in the Israeli political economy. In that, it both sheds light on the state-business relationship in the Israeli political economy, and refines the understanding of oligarchy in general. In order to achieve this two-folded objective, I rec-conceptualise oligarchy, identify its sources, characterise its structure, and analyse the main mechanisms through which it establishes its power in a national political economy, specifically - in Israel. The literature so far scarcely addresses the ways in which such cluster of wealth and power emerges and develops in liberal and developed market economies. This thesis aims to fill this gap, by examining the origins of the oligarchy rise, the key actors involved in the process of 'oligarchisation', and the modalities through which oligarchs are distinguished from other wealthy actors. In particular, this work illuminates the critical role of the state in the formation and modus operandiof the oligarchy, which, in return, has substantial influence on the decision-making process and the political economy as a whole. The term 'oligarchy' in this thesis refers to a set of institutional, political, and social linkages and dynamics, whose interests are to some extent converged and are increasingly counterpoised to the interests of the 'traditional' economy. My analysis develops on the basis of a critical engagement with theories examining concentration of wealth and power in national political economies, together with data collected from various governemental and non-governmental sources and fieldwork, examining the facets of this concentration in Israel. My study reveals that the corpus of ideas and assessments of oligarchy points to a cohesive power structure, which, in the Israeli case, can be identified as an informal political institution.

A debate on the instrumentality of candidate personality evaluation has been slowly brewing. This research views evaluations of candidate personality as rational instruments for vote decisions. Rationality is defined as goal directedness. / A goal oriented voter has multiple concerns: candidate trustworthiness, competence, and policy directions. Policy concerns must be accompanied by an assumption of trustworthiness and competence because the candidate who cannot be relied upon to fulfill his promises or who lacks the ability to direct government cannot achieve his policy ends. / Analysis of the two ICPSR panels (1956-1960 and 1972-1976) provides a unique opportunity for exploring the influence and instrumentality of candidate evaluations. The panels feature the re-election of an incumbent, the presence of a former vice-president (and his defeat), and the return of the majority party to power. / This research provides six pieces of evidence of the instrumentality of candidate personality evaluation: (1) the separation of affective from instrumental responses; (2) the frequency of instrumental responses; (3) the consistency of instrumental responses between elections; (4) the association of instrumental evaluations with issue and ideological responses; (5) the use of instrumental personality evaluations by political sophisticates; and (6) the importance of instrumental personality evaluations in predicting vote. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-06, Section: A, page: 2079. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

Journalistic speculation about the 1980 presidential election seems to suggest that conservative religious groups might have played a significant role in the startling victory of Ronald Reagan and the Republican party. This research project takes such speculation as a point of departure in an attempt to answer a whole series of questions concerning the long neglected relationshp between religion and voting behavior in the American context. Religion is seen as a central belief system which has the capacity to affect presidential voting behavior by first affecting political attitudes towards many of the important policy issues of the day. / Along the way a denominational measure is developed and shown to be a meaningful predictor of three separate dimensions of religious belief. This denominational measure is shown to have been significantly related to presidential voting behavior in three of the last six elections, those of 1960, 1968 and 1972. Evidence is gathered to suggest that religious belief affected the latter two elections through the medium of issue attitudes. Specifically, religious beliefs seemed to have had an impact on the formation of attitudes towards civil rights and the new moral issues such as abortion and women's rights. / Finally, an attempt is made to assess the impact of elite and mass level changes on the strength of the religion factor. Evidence is presented to show that the presidential nominees themselves are an important variable in determining whether or not religion will play a significant role in affecting an election outcome. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-06, Section: A, page: 2081. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The primary justification for this study rests on the tragic fact that although empirical studies of political participation and behavior have proliferated over thirty years, there are few extensive analyses of black political behavior, and the best of these (Matthews and Prothro, 1966) is based on macro data for the southern region collected almost two decades ago. Thus, social scientists in general, and political scientists in particular, have barely begun to scratch the surface in attempting to understand why blacks, especially in the South, have failed to maximize their political potentialities despite the removal of extra-legal obstacles. A second importance of this study is related to the fact that it deals with black political behavior in Florida. The last thorough empirical study to deal with black political behavior in Florida was done by Hugh D. Price in the 1950's. / This study involves a research design to examine the impact and relationship of three factors--income education, and SES (social-economic status)--on black political participation. The main focus of the research is on measurement. In measuring the three concepts impact on the dependent variable, black political participation, nine predictors are employed. The data in the study are analyzed in three stages. The first stage examines each individual predictor variable to determine the impact of the single predictor on voting participation. The second stage considers the collective impacts of the education and economic factors, and also the sum of the two on voting participation. Finally, the impact of the regional differences on black political participation is examined. / The primary statistical procedures are descriptive and inferential for each stage of the analytical process. The descriptive procedure is constituted of univariate statistics--such as means, standard deviations and histograms, and bivariate statistics including the Pearson correlation and the plots of dependent variable vs. independent variables. / In general, the data provided statistical support explaining black political participation as a function of county socioeconomic status in Florida. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-10, Section: A, page: 3407. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

This research examines the influence of social environments on trial court decision making. More specifically, this study explores the impact of local public opinion, along with other environmental characteristics, on the sentencing behavior of criminal courts in Florida's twenty judicial circuits. This study focuses on broad variations in aggregate sentencing patterns by circuit courts in several distinct types of criminal cases and their links to variations in public attitudes toward crime and sentencing as well as other social, economic and political features of the circuit. In addition, this research focuses on routine criminal cases in order to determine if there are links between local environments, public opinion and the bulk of judicial decisions. / The thesis of this study is that variations in trial court sentencing patterns are associated with variations in their social environments. While all courts are linked to and influenced by the environment in which they operate, the linkage is particularly clear with respect to local trial courts. In addition to the close ties between trial courts and their local environment, sentencing decisions are subject to many influences, including environmental forces. Therefore, trial court sentencing behavior offers a fruitful area of research for those interested in exploring the environmental determinants of judicial behavior. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-12, Section: A, page: 3797. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

The purpose of this study was to assess the innovative capability of the Saudi bureaucracy. As senior bureaucrats set the tone of the entire bureaucracy, they were the main objects of the investigation. The research involved examination of the innovative tendencies of the Saudi senior bureaucrats, evaluation by these bureaucrats of innovation in their units, the major factors which seem to explain low productivity, and changes that might help in producing innovation in the Saudi bureaucratic setting (such as age, social status, education, training). / Data were collected with a survey instrument administered to 231 Saudi senior bureaucrats in 10 ministries. Factor analysis, frequency distribution, and crosstabulation were used to analyze the data. / The findings indicated that the Saudi senior bureaucrats had low-level tendencies toward innovation. They believed that a small number of their subordinates were willing to be innovative, and that the major contributor to the low level of innovation among bureaucrats was their lack of technical skills. / The relationship was examined between innovation and several variables which may have a direct or indirect influence on the development of innovation and the degree of innovation. Testing of these relationships resulted in rejection of almost 44% of the null hypotheses. This indicated a significant relationship between innovation and these variables: appropriateness of education, job satisfaction, fear of mistakes, income, delegation of authority, decision making, centralization, social participation, and the size of the organization or ministry. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, Section: A, page: 1855. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

In the general Greek elections of 1981 the socialists for the first time won a parliamentary majority. The intention of this study was to determine whether the Greeks are shedding their traditional values and attitudes, or whether the 1981 election was merely an isolated phenomenon both in terms of social and political change. In order to accomplish this intention, a public opinion survey was conducted involving 598 individuals who belonged to three heterogeneous target groups (professional, labor and rural). / The various responses were measured in three ways, by employing three sets of indicators (demographic, environmental and attitudinal). / The results show, that voting for the socialists in 1981, was not an isolated phenomenon but the culmination of a trend which had begun during the 1960s, was interrupted by the military dictatorship (1967-1974), and reemerged after Greece became a republic (1975). / The study found that traditional agents such as age, sex, family, school, place of birth, etc., are gradually losing their influence. Instead new values and attitudes (such as freedom of speech, individual rights, etc.) are emerging and are expected to be very important in the near future. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-09, Section: A, page: 2982. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

An intra-theory analysis comparing and contrasting the Nineteenth Century Anarchists with their Twentieth Century counterparts. It is argued that these two groups are not only temporaly but also theoretically disjunct. Thus, an intra-theory analysis is performed to determine what arguments are common to both and can consequently be considered the core of anarchist theory. / This analysis was performed in an attempt to determine if anarchism presents a reasoned theoretical antithesis to political theories that automatically assume power relationships to be a necessary fact of political life. / It is concluded that, although anarchism is flawed in some respects, it does present an explanatory framework premised upon the structural characteristics of power and that this framework can be quite fertile for not only explanation but also prediction. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-04, Section: A, page: 1199. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

In 1963, Alabama Governor George C. Walace defied a court order by Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to integrate the University of Alabama. This incident turned the governor into a national celebrity and led to a number of speaking engagements across the country. During one of these engagements, Wallace indicated an interest in entering certain presidential primaries in the North in order to campaign against the pending national civil rights legislation. The Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary was the first of these races. / Since President Lyndon Johnson had the Democratic presidential nomination for the asking, little attention was given to the Wallace candidacy. Governor John Reynolds was selected to run against Wallace as the Democraic favorite-son candidate, and the Republicans chose Representative John Byrnes as their favorite-son candidate. When the votes were cast on April 7, the entire nation was surprised at the large number of votes obtained by Wallace. / Upon examination of the conditions and events prior to and during the presidential primary campaign, the following factors apparently contributed to the surprising showing of Governor Wallace: (1) An open primary system existed in Wisconsin that allowed a large Republican cross-over vote for Wallace; (2) The Republican favorite-son candidate had no opponent; (3) The Democratic party was divided over their favorite-son candidate, one of the most unpopular Governors in the political history of Wisconsin; (4) Wallace's opponents waged a personal defamation campaign based on Wallace's reputation as a racist to which Wallace did not respond; and (5) Some white residents of Wisconsin were afraid of the increasing civil rights demands of the black population. These factors served to gain support and sympathy for the Wallace candidacy and to focus national attention on the Alabama governor as he conducted subsequent campaigns in Maryland and Indiana. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-07, Section: A, page: 2235. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.