This qualitative case study analyzed the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), and the historical and legal background leading up to the case. Often characterized as a decision representing an emotional rejection of homosexuality rather than a reasoned application of constitutional privacy precedent, this inquiry sought to identify and document the determinants of the outcome in Bowers, in which a slim majority of the Court ruled that the constitutional right of privacy did not prohibit states from regulating homosexual sodomy. The study demonstrated that although homophobia certainly played a part in the Bowers decision, that the opinion was not necessarily inconsistent with previous privacy decisions such as Griswold v. Connecticut , 381 U.S. 479 (1965), and Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). The author concluded that the dominant insight gleaned from Bowers is that there is no such thing as a constitutionally protected right of privacy, at least not in the way that privacy is conventionally understood. The Bowers opinion illuminates that the Court's privacy jurisprudence has been more about the privileging of certain relationships (such as that between husband and wife or doctor and patient) than it has been about personal privacy. Such relationships serve an important limiting principle. The author concluded that the outcome in Bowers was not the insufficiency of the claim of a right to privacy, but the insufficiency of any limiting principle. The research documented and analyzed history of the two bodies of law most relevant to the Bowers opinion: state law which criminalized sodomy; and constitutional protection of individual privacy.

Is there something special about group rights? Many would say "yes". For some, only certain kinds of groups--ones that are oppressed, or play a special role in well-being--may have rights. For others, the kind of group is not as important as the group's culture and internal structure. At the very least, many argue, group rights ought to be more restricted than individualistic ones. For these reasons, arguing the merits of a group right is often thought to require a theory of groups or of group identity. If only certain kinds of groups may have rights then one has to identify the roles that various groups and/or identities play in personal well-being. If a group's culture or internal structure must meet certain standards then one must develop a theory of how culture or the internal organization of a minority influences people. I argue that it is a mistake to think that arguing a group right requires a theory of groups. This mistake reflects a tendency to think about group membership as a kind of good and to focus on its internal, psychological significance. But if one thinks about group membership as a vehicle of action, and focuses on the concrete effects it may have, it becomes apparent that arguing for a group right does not require a theory of groups, group identity or culture. For in the end, the issues that one must address in arguing a group rights are issues about groups. Rather, they are issues about political and moral authority, and about the extent to which moral and political norms ought to recognize and reinforce the ways that people depend upon one another. These are important issues and they raise pressing questions for political philosophy. But they are not about groups.

This dissertation is focused on constructing and testing an analytical and conceptual framework to study structures of governance moving concrete urban initiatives forward. Relying on Anthony Giddens' notion of structuration I consider structures of governance as outcomes of a recursive relation between social practices and broader properties of the social system and, by embracing some insights from Michel Foucault, I regard the execution of power as a necessary condition for the process of structuration to occur. The framework I develop here suggests reading structures of governance as power arrangements constructed through socio-discursive rules operating for analytical purposes at three distinct functional or institutional levels: policy-making, implementation, and operational. In this way, I attempt to capture the multi-level exercise of power, relating the local conditions in which urban initiatives unfold to broader political and economic situations. I take two Chilean case studies to apply this construct in comparative perspective: the North Rivera Project in the city of Concepcion and the Portal of the Bicentenary Project in the city of Santiago. Both initiatives will bring about profound changes in these cities in terms of creating new spaces for capital investment, building new residential and consumption districts, and affecting the local community either directly through physical displacement or indirectly through the impacts of nearby new urbanized areas. To interpret the rules in place that frame governing processes I make use of semi-structured and documentary evidence. In the concluding section I argue that the analytical and conceptual framework constructed was useful to examine interconnections among levels, to define the channels used by social actors to control society and urban space, and to generate strategic information on which to base policy recommendations. This framework was able to disentangle the social practices creating the distinct and particularistic power relations moving each project forward, suggesting that structures of governance are not only being constructed vertically but also horizontally and/or spatially via actors operating under possibilities and constraints emerging from the broader system and conscious, at the same time, of the local conditions in which they operate and able to deploy strategies consistent with those conditions.

The theory of postmaterialism contains the proposition that basic values are changing in advanced industrial societies. Furthermore, the theory contains the propositions that individuals in these societies can be classified according to clusters of value orientations and that political behavior can be predicted according to these orientations. Among other things, this theory has been put forward as a powerful explanatory model for unconventional political action in advanced industrial societies. This study utilizes survey material from Germany to construct a model that explores the effect of value orientation on unconventional political action. The study then goes on to investigate the links between value orientation and other leading theories of unconventional political action. Until now, nothing has been attempted in the way of investigating empirically the specific factors put forward as causal agents regarding postmaterialists' hypothesized propensity to participate in unconventional political action. Likewise, little work has been done in the way of investigating the relationship, if any, between postmaterialism and important other theories of such behavior. This project then has as its central foci the testing of the primary hypotheses regarding the basis for value orientation and unconventional political action, and whether postmaterialists' hypothesized propensity to participate in such activities may be the result of an underlying relationship between value orientation and factors that make up much of the conceptual landscape of other leading theories of unconventional political action. The results indicate that value orientation does have a weak direct effect on unconventional political acts, but that integrating value orientation and other theories results in more powerful explanatory models of such activity, and serve to more fully explain the manner in which value orientation affects political behavior.

The recent 16 year civil war in Mozambique dislocated approximately six million people (primarily small-scale agriculturalists) from land resources to which they are now returning and re-claiming; comprising the largest return and re-integration of refugees and displaced persons in the history of Africa. The UN expects to continue its resettlement activities in Mozambique until the year 2000. However re-access to land resources is problematic due to overlapping land claims stemming from the reforming state land tenure system, including a reformulating land law. Land concessions are being granted from different ministries at the national, provincial, and district level with no coordination, enforcement, or mechanisms to resolve competing claims between smallholders and concessionaires. Disputes over land resources between participants in a national versus customary tenure system, and the inability of the two to connect in terms of how such disputes are resolved in ways that are viewed as secure and legitimate (and therefore respected) by participants in both systems, can have especially serious repercussions in periods of recovery from armed conflict. The intersection of land tenure system (including formal and customary "laws") and identity is crucial in this regard. This dissertation examines the role "critical resource" tenure following Mozambique's war, and how the conflict between reformulating customary and state land tenure systems aggravates the 'disconnect' between state and customary identities, and works against the peace process underway in the country. In the wake of the Somalia debacle, the UN and the international community are compelled to examine new operational modalities that specifically address the issues that can jeopardize a peace process. This dissertation makes the argument that land tenure in critical resource areas following armed conflict is such a problematic issue, and that attention to this issue needs to become an integral part of the peace process in societies where agriculture is fundamental to recovery.

Democratic procedures allow us to decide as a society what to do. We intuitively embrace the ideal of a democratic state. But do we need democracy? Some argue that the social institutions we need to live well legitimately evolve through the spontaneous and decentralized activity of free individuals, thereby making democratic decisions unnecessary. But because unjust inequalities in power inevitably develop through the evolution of property regimes and market systems, there are strong moral reasons for the community to establish democratic procedures to monitor and rehabilitate these historically entrenched institutions. Executing this corrective function is a central reason why we do in fact need democracy. Yet there is considerable disagreement about democracy's precise justification beyond this functional rationale. John Stuart Mill and Richard Arneson both argue for the claim that the justification of popular rule is solely a matter of democracy's ability to generate morally correct outcomes. I reject these views. Democracy is valuable beyond being a means to some other morally desirable ends. Democracy is justified, I argue, because it is an intrinsically just procedure. The challenge is to understand what this means. Joshua Cohen suggests that democracy is intrinsically just because in the process of democratic deliberation reasonable citizens are given reasons to accept exercises of state power. I reject Cohen's deliberative model because it does not adequately appreciate the range of moral disagreement in contemporary democracies. Further, the standard of reasonableness at the heart of his justification for democracy is not consistent with the use of majority rule, an essential element of the democratic process. Instead, I argue that democracy is an intrinsically just procedure because it distributes political power over the decisions regarding the basic rules of social life equally, and thereby satisfies each individual's interest in the public affirmation of his or her basic social standing. Democracy matters because the public declaration of equal moral standing matters.

It is common in our everyday social and political life to justify such treatments as punishment, income, prizes, grades, or jobs by appealing to what people deserve. We claim that criminals deserve to go to prison for their wrongdoing, and that the amount of punishment which is appropriate has to do with how much they deserve. And we feel, even as children, the injustice of punishment, which is undeserved. Employees engage in bitter strikes not just because they want more income, but because they strongly believe they deserve more. Yet despite the importance of these claims in our everyday lives, philosophers have given the concept of desert scant attention compared with other moral concepts. Consequently, our understanding of the structure and justification of desert is vague. In this thesis, I develop a conceptual theory of the logical structure of desert claims, arguing that the essence of desert is both evaluative and expressive. I argue that every desert claim implies three claims: a factual description of the agent, an evaluation of the agent's characteristics or behavior, and a claim as to what treatment of the agent would effectively express the evaluation. For example, to say Smith deserves a prison sentence for robbing the bank is to say Smith robbed the bank, robbing the bank is worthy of our strong disapproval, and sending Smith to prison is an effective way to express this disapproval. Understanding desert claims this way allows a richer understanding of the justification for these claims, and of the relationship between desert and other moral concepts, such as entitlement.

What explains policy-making in modern, representative democracies? In theory, voters select the parry or candidate that most reflects their policy preferences and then elected officials pursue these policies once in office. Consequently, voters' preferences are transformed into policy outputs when they send an electoral mandate. While there is consistent evidence supporting this relationship in advanced, industrial democracies there are reasons to question the efficacy of the process in the developing world. Weak political parties and economic volatility undermine the power of the voters to influence policy outputs. In order to test whether voters can affect policy-making in the developed world I examine the adoption of market-oriented economic policies in Latin America during the 1980s and 1990s. The region experienced both extreme party shifts and severe economic crisis and thus provides a difficult test of mandate theory. Using a combination of fieldwork and region-wide analysis I find that mandates do function, although not always in the predicted fashion. Presidents in the region often abandon their electoral mandates, yet concerns that executive autonomy undermines the democratic process in Latin America seem largely unfounded. However, voters in presidential democracies select two agents and the second of these, the legislature, faithfully pursues its mandate. Furthermore, where the potential for collective action in the legislature is high legislators are better equipped to pursue their electoral mandates. Consequently. I conclude that electoral reforms that increase the potential for collective action in the legislature offer the opportunity to improve the quality of democracy in Latin America.

Why do some symbolic acts of protest trigger mass mobilization while others do not? Why did riots following the public suicide of a young street vendor humiliated by local authorities in the Tunisian city of Monastir in March 2010 fail to escalate into mass mobilization while a quasi-identical event in the neighboring city of Sidi-Bouzid helped precipitate a successful revolution only few months later? This study examines four cases of successful and failed instances of social mobilization in Tunisia and Algeria in order to present two complementary arguments. Using the signaling logic of informational cascade theory, this study first argues that successful mobilization needs the early involvement of respected local intermediate actors who identify an opportunity for political mobilization and use their prestige and networks to encourage other people to join mobilization. Second, this work shows that successful social mobilization is the result of a surprise factor, which is fueled by the presence of moderate/prestigious actors during the early acts of protest, regime violence, and unusual media coverage. These factors create a perception of exceptionality, which breaks the locally available cognitive heuristic originally in favor of the regime, and allows for successful informational cascades to occur. / Pourquoi est-ce que certains actes de contestation provoquent une mobilisation de masse alors que d'autres actes similaires n'ont pas le même effet? Pourquoi est-ce que les émeutes faisant suite au suicide d'un jeune vendeur ambulant humilié par les autorités locales dans la ville tunisienne de Monastir ont-elles échouées à se transformer en mouvement de masse alors qu'un évènement quasi-identique dans la ville de Sidi-Bouzid a réussi à précipiter une révolution quelques mois plus tard seulement? Ce travail examine quatre cas de mobilisation sociale en Tunisie et en Algérie et propose deux explications complémentaires. En se basant sur la logique de signalisation développée dans la théorie des cascades informationnelles, ce travail affirme d'abord qu'une mobilisation sociale réussie requiert la présence en amont d'acteurs intermédiaires respectés qui identifient une opportunité de mobilisation politique et utilisent leur prestige et leurs réseaux pour encourager le reste de la population à se mobiliser. Deuxièmement, ce travail démontre qu'une mobilisation sociale réussie est le résultat d'un facteur de surprise alimenté par la présence d'acteurs intermédiaires/prestigieux durant les premiers actes de contestation, par la violence des autorités et par une couverture médiatique inusitée. Ces facteurs mènent au développement d'un sentiment d'exceptionnalité qui casse les raccourcis cognitifs en faveur du régime partagés par la population et permet de la formation d'une cascade informationnelle réussie.

This thesis is concerned with the role that consumer demand for news plays in political behaviour. While a great deal of study has been done to examine media supply, very little has looked into the other side of the equation. If we are interested in the distortions media creates, than part of that equation must be a concern with what types of news individuals select -- particularly in the 21st century context of a "high-choice" media-environment. I examine this problem through a new experimental method designed to overcome shortcomings in the existing research. Previous studies have focused their methodologies primarily on achieving generalizability, while the method here seeks to find a better balance with internal validity. I use this method to tackle two different areas: demand for negative and strategic news (Experiment One); and demand for news that confirms test-subjects ideological and partisan biases (Experiment Two). Both studies produce significant results that bolster confidence in this new methodology. / Ce mémoire traite du rôle des demandes des consommateurs au niveau des nouvelles et la relation avec le comportement politique. Alors que plusieurs études ont traité de l'offre médiatique, peu se sont intéressées à l'autre côté de la médaille. Si nous sommes intéressés aux distorsions créées par les médias, il faut évidemment étudier le type de nouvelles que les individus sélectionnent. Cela est d'autant plus justifié que nous vivons dans une ère où l'environnement médiatique offre plusieurs choix de nouvelles aux consommateurs. J'étudie cette problématique à travers les méthodes expérimentales afin de surmonter les failles méthodologiques des études existantes. Les recherches précédentes se sont concentrées sur le fait d'avoir des résultats généralisables, alors que la présente recherche tente de trouver un meilleur équilibre avec la validité interne. J'utilise cette méthode afin de préciser deux différents champs : la demande pour des nouvelles stratégiques et négatives (Expérience #1); et, la demande pour des nouvelles satisfaisant l'idéologie et l'identification partisane des sujets-tests (Expérience #2). Les deux expériences produisent des résultats significatifs qui renforcent la confiance à avoir en cette nouvelle méthode.