Ahmednagar District, in Bombay Presidency, was affected - along with much of South India - by a major drought in 1876-78, leading to famine relief by the Government of Bombay and considerable emigration and mortality. Recent literature, however, has suggested that famine is a complex, human and long-drawn-out process, rather than a sudden, natural phenomenon. This thesis seeks to identify that process among poor peasants in Ahmednagar between 1870 and 1884. It does so by examining their factors of production - land, capital and, to a lesser extent, labour - as well as markets in credit and the cheap foodgrains they produced, in order to locate both their chronic food insecurity and forces increasing their vulnerability over time. In this context, emphasis is given to the relationship of the British colonial state to the peasantry. The agrarian policies and agendas of the Government of Bombay are explored with regard to peasant vulnerability. It is argued that it failed to invest in production and infrastructure, while forcing peasants into competitive markets in which they were ill-equipped to compete. Despite a laissez-faire philosophy, it intervened to first promote, then penalise, usurious moneylenders, reducing the availability of credit. It also taxed peasants directly through the inflexible ryotwari land revenue system. In the crisis, peasants were not treated as famine victims and discouraged from accepting relief. The state can therefore be said to have contributed to the process of famine. It is argued that the propriety of colonial famine policies - and especially of other policies in the agricultural sector that undermined peasant food security - was widely discussed at different levels within the British state, from assistant collectors in Ahmednagar to secretaries of state in London. Attention is given to the way these debates were conducted and the process of policy-making analysed, concluding that the colonial hierarchy made it difficult for officers to be responsive to local problems.

A leadership emergency is developing in higher education. According the American Association for Community Colleges, by 2022, 75% of current community college presidents intend to retire, and within five years an additional 15% will exit the presidency. As these individuals leave their leadership role, the higher education environment they leave behind will change. Understanding this impending leadership crisis, the purpose of this qualitative interview study was to describe and understand the leadership experience of former Florida College System institution presidents, their perspective and reflection on the institution of the presidency and its evolution, and their thoughts regarding the pertinent challenges facing current and future presidents in the next three to five years. Data were collected through explorative interviews with six former Florida community college presidents. Thirteen themes emerged from the analysis of the data. These themes aligned with and expanded the understanding of the community college presidential leadership experience. Important research implications for academic researchers and practitioners were discovered and additional lines of inquiry for further research in the areas of presidential leadership experience emerged.

This thesis adopts a Wendtian constructivist perspective in order to explore how Iran defined its interests in the context of the nuclear issue during the Ahmadinejad presidency. Against realist-type approaches which often attributed a nuclear weapons rationale to Iran and framed its programme as a threat to international security, it argues that Iran’s nuclear policy must be interpreted within the context of its identity and the latter’s causal and constitutive effects on its interests and behaviours. The Wendtian perspective, together with a mixed methods approach combining document analysis and interviews, sheds light on how Iran understood its interests and why the regime perceived opportunities/threats and permissible/unacceptable options in the way it did. This thesis demonstrates that Iran’s nuclear programme was interpreted within a structure of meaning that emphasised its legality and legitimacy. Additionally, it shows that the Ahmadinejad administration’s resistance strategies cannot be understood outside the context of the perceived humiliating failure of the Khatami administration’s confidence-building approach. Not only had Iran’s reputation and independence been jeopardised, but its failure to secure recognition of its nuclear rights also confirmed that the issue was a Western-led manufactured crisis that aimed to undermine the IRI, prevent the development of the Iranian nation and transform the IAEA’s mandate. Iran thus engaged in strategies of self-assertion to challenge the perceived illegal and illegitimate policies of its negotiation partners, the UNSC and the IAEA. Furthermore, this thesis contends that the Ahmadinejad administration sought to transform the diplomatic focus on its nuclear programme into multifaceted geopolitical opportunities. On the one hand, Iran attempted to situate the issue within the wider context of global debates around access to peaceful nuclear energy and the sustainability of the non-proliferation regime. Its denunciations of the Western NWSs’ discriminatory practices echoed with other states’ concerns. On the other hand, Iran’s proposals to the EU-3/P5+1 included repeated offers of cooperation on a range of dilemmas of common interests and aversion. As such, Iran pursued dual-track strategies towards its main nuclear opponents, combining enforcement costs with inducements. Finally, the belief that the US lay at the core of the nuclear issue prompted important debates and developments within Iran about the question of their bilateral relations. While these challenged conventional wisdoms about the principlists’ preferences, Iran’s discursive and ever-increasing strategic dependence on the US continued to explain its Janus-faced strategies towards the superpower.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Robert W. Meeds / This report is based on an exhibition of 37 photographs at the Kemper Gallery in the Student Union of Kansas State University. All photographs presented here and in the exhibit were created during the past 28 years of my career. Hence the exhibit is a mid-career retrospective. My photojournalism experience is very unique in that I am the only photojournalist in the world who has worked as a presidential photographer, published photo essays in National Geographic Magazine as a freelancer, and been on the staff of a large metro newspaper. The photographs chosen for the exhibit were highlighted by, but not limited to, assignments from those three experiences. This report mirrors the exhibit except for a few additional photographs that, because of space limitations, didn’t make it into the final edit for the exhibit. There are three sections: Moments from Kansas to Papua New Guinea, The Presidency, and After 9/11. The “moments” section presents a wide variety of photographs from a wide variety of assignments. The “presidency” section focuses on my tenure as Official White House Photographer for President Reagan, and also includes photographs of the Reagan funeral, other presidents, and a possible future president. “After 9/11” begins at the Pentagon on 9/12, and then follows the course of events in Afghanistan during the following weeks. Extensive captions accompany most of the photographs. The captions are written in the third person which is customary for gallery exhibitions. More than the who, what, where and when, they provide some additional context and are intended to inform both the journalism student and the layperson.

For all their efforts to avoid a nuclear North Korea, the Clinton and Bush administrations failed to achieve this goal, the most important policy objective of the United States in its relations with North Korea for decades, mainly because of inconsistencies in U.S. policy. This dissertation seeks to explain why both administrations ultimately failed to prevent North Korea from going nuclear. It finds the origins of this failure in the implementation of different U.S. policy options toward North Korea during the Clinton and Bush administrations. To explain the lack of policy consistency, the dissertation investigates how the relations between the executive and the legislative branches and, more specifically, different government types—unified government and divided government—have affected U.S. policy toward North Korea. It particularly emphasizes the role of Congress and partisan politics in the making of U.S. policy toward North Korea. This study finds that divided government played a pivotal role. Partisan politics are also central to the explanation: politics did not stop at the water’s edge. A divided U.S. government produced more status quo policies toward North Korea than a unified U.S. government, while a unified government produced more active policies than a divided government. Moreover, a unified government with a Republican President produced more aggressive policies toward North Korea, whereas a unified government with a Democratic President produced more conciliatory policies. This study concludes that the different government types and intensified partisan politics were the main causes of the inconsistencies in the United States’ North Korea policy that led to a nuclear North Korea.

In 2007 the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) was reformed by the introduction of the so-called trio Presidency . The trio mechanism encourages policy continuity by grouping incumbent Presidencies in teams of three and inviting them to coordinate. This thesis seeks to contribute original knowledge on EU policy-making by mapping how trio practices are established, exploring which factors explain how Member States coordinate, and by assessing how the trio arrangement affects the EU agenda. Empirically, the trio function is examined through its implementation in the policy area of sport, focusing on the three trios to assume office after the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. The analysis is structured around a number of carefully selected dossiers adopted between 2010 and 2013. Guided by a conceptual framework based on agenda-setting and new institutionalism, these decisions are submitted to in depth process-tracing. The analysis draws on qualitative research, primarily official documents and 37 semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that actors approach the trio with differing preferences and expectations, leading to much variation in how the arrangement is performed. The thesis identifies a number of factors that explain variation. Thus, a fixed agenda supports trios in coordinating priorities and activities ex ante. Moreover, coordination is conditioned by trio composition, as federal and new Member States are more inclined to cooperate. Further, trio practices are shaped by factors such as multiannual planning and focusing events, with the intenseness of trio coordination reflecting whether the agenda includes issues that demand sustained attention. The thesis concludes that the introduction of the trio mechanism has preserved the ability of Member States to use the Council Presidency to prioritise national priorities whilst also encouraging and facilitating EU policy continuity. By extending agenda-management beyond a six month spell, the trio can strengthen the agenda-setting powers of incumbent Member States, particularly on issues that concern establishing urgent responses or developing Council procedures. Moreover, evidence suggests that the arrangement can produce a specific spirit of collegiality, trio solidarity, which sees trio Member States support each other during negotiations, thus affecting EU policy-making beyond agenda-management.

This work talks about multilateral negotiation in EU. Clearly describe each institution of EU, it history, function and structure. Then it brings some information about legislation process, how it works and who is involved. After that is described the function and meaning of presidency in EU. At the end it talks about presidency of Czech republic from January 2009 and give some advices to the government.

Each presidency presents its program of priorities before the beginning. In connection with the formulation of the priorities we can follow three different lines influencing the whole process: affairs within EU, affairs out of EU and last but not least the national priorities of individual member states. The target of this thesis is to present a general overview of EU presidencies in the period 2000-2008 and to demonstrate, that formulated priorities do not appear in the agendas of presidencies randomly, but reflect certain continuity in development of the integration process.

This work is focused on the issue of the Czech Presidency of the European Union. It deals with the main priorities of the Czech Republic in this function. The priorities in dealing with global financial crisis are the heart of the work. Despite that the actions relating to the financial crisis have already been taken in the EU, there is still a risk of a slowdown in economic growth. The aim of the project is to analyze the ways in which the Czech Republic, as presiding state, will deal with a slowdown or even a decline in economic growth in European region and with the main steps leading to the recovery of financial markets and EU economy. There are specified macroeconomic and structural policies leading to strengthen growth potential of the country. In conclusion, there is evaluated present development in solving the financial crisis and outlined the trend for further development in Europe.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the representation of the current female presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren in two american newspapers. The representation of Elizabeth Warren in the media is being related to the masculinity norm of the presidency. The aim with the study is to create understanding for how implicit biases about gender and the presidency influence the rendition of female presidential candidates in the media. The study is using Norman Faircloughs critical discourse analysis and the theory of the gendersystem. The empirical material consists of 10 articles from The New York Times and The Washington Post. The main conclusion of the analysis is that the media discourse of Elizabeth Warren is defined by the question of her electability in the election. The masculinity norm of the presidency is being reproduced and also questioned in an open discussion about the gender aspect in presidential elections.