Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-162). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This research examines the revolution of 2010 in Tunisia due to the paucity of empirical research on the subject and to resolve analytical problems that plague research on similar events. The research is based in both the cultural turn in social movement research and the state constructionist theory of revolutions. The methodology employed is a case study which combines a content analysis of an Al Jazeera news program called Al Hassad Al Maghrebi with data from two public opinion surveys conducted in Tunisia shortly after the revolution, and pre-existing academic research. The findings indicate that Al Jazeera did play a role in increasing mobilization against the Ben Ali regime by broadcasting the spread of protests and regime concessions. This was facilitated by the censorship practices of the Ben Ali regime which caused a popular news channel like Al Jazeera to rely purely on opposition sources for its broadcasts.

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Master of Arts / Communications Studies / Charles J. Griffin / The 2011 Arab Spring Revolutions across the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region drew international attention to the collection action phenomenon of revolutions. Despite having a significant impact on today’s globalized world, revolutions have been widely unexplored by social movement rhetorical scholars. This lack of study has prompted scholars to call for the investigation of the role human agency plays during revolutions (Morris, 2000). Rhetorical scholars are well-suited to meet this call but lack a methodological framework to examine revolutions. In responding to Morris’ call and with an interest in adding to the body of rhetorical social movement literature, this thesis asks two research questions. What are the rhetorical characteristics of revolutions? Are revolutions rhetorically distinct from social movements? To answer these questions, this thesis translates Jack Goldstone’s (1998) Divergent View of Social Movements and Revolutions into a rhetorical model for studying revolutions. This adaptation of the political science model relies heavily on Leland Griffin’s (1969) and Charles Stewart’s (1980) models of social movements. Additionally, the adapted model also incorporates James Wilkinson’s (1989) discussion of revolutionary rhetorical functions. The application of the new rhetorical model to the Egyptian Arab Spring reveals revolutions rhetorically develop and function in ways that creates a clear distinction between revolutions from social movements. These findings prompt discussion of methodological and critical implications.

Thesis advisor: Robert Murphy / Much has been said, often negatively, of the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in the international system. Usually these criticisms focus on financial advice rooted in neoliberal ideology rather than in conditions within a given economy, or on the strict conditions attached to IMF or World Bank loans. The discussion of the role of these institutions often does not extend into the discussion of revolutions. This study seeks to draw connections between IMF or World Bank involvement in developing states and the revolutions that occurred within them. Using John Foran’s model for revolution in the Third World, the study aims to determine whether conditionality constitutes a “world-systemic opening”—a change in the international system that allows the structural inadequacies of a state to fall to the pressures of the society beneath it. This examination reaffirms the notion that revolutions are complex processes with roots in a state’s structures and its placement in the international system. The revolutionary consequences of IMF and World Bank involvement is not limited to conditionality, however; in the three situations studied, conditionality was limited, despite rules to the contrary. Throughout these revolutions, the work of the IMF and World Bank is pervasive, especially in economic policy advising and the extending of loans crucial to the survival of the old economic system. More often than not it is the withdrawal of funding due to political oppression or instability than it is conditionality that constitutes a world-systemic opening. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

The best interest test is the legal mechanism which governs decision making on behalf of adults who lack the capacity to make their own health care treatment decisions. The test has attracted considerable criticism from health professionals, academics, judges and lawyers for being ill-defined and non-specific. The question of what is meant by 'best interests' remains largely unanswered. As a consequence, the test gives medical and legal decision makers considerable discretion to apply their personal value judgements within supposedly value-free philosophical frameworks - unreasoned and opaque decision making processes are the inevitable result. Because of the dominance of supposedly value-free philosophical frameworks, the place of values in decision making is not always fully understood. Reasoning is not possible without values, which stem from our emotions and passions, our upbringing, our religion, our cultures, our processes of socialisation and from our life experiences. Values help us make sense of our daily lives. I argue that law - like any other social institution - is essentially a human, values based construct. I put forward a theory of values-based law which argues for the recognition that laws, rules and conventions are based on, and contain, individual values. Currently, medical and legal decision makers justify grave decisions on behalf of society's most vulnerable citizens without revealing, or even acknowledging the values which drive and inform their decisions. Any opportunities to scrutinise or debate the values driving decisions are lost. Ultimately, values-based law argues that values underlying best interest determinations must be exposed to facilitate honest, transparent and fulsome decision making on behalf of adults who lack capacity. By applying the theory of values-based law, supposedly value-free decision making processes are exposed as insufficient to facilitate fulsome, honest and transparent legal reasoning.

Inaugural-Dissertation--Greifswald, 1932. / Lebenslauf. "Schrifttum," p. 54-56.

Despite its reputation for instability and weak states, the continent of Africa has seen very few attempts at secession. The 1960s saw the early attempts of Katanga and Biafra to split away from their host states, only for these attempts to be crushed in short order. Since then there have only been a handful of notable attempts at secession: the early attempts by the Southern Sudan to split from the North, the secessionist desires of Cabinda to separate from Angola, the Casamance separatists of Senegal, and finally the long and still unrecognized separation of Somaliland from the failed state of Somalia. What is notable is that none of these have borne permanent fruit despite the persistence of the separatist fronts (although the Southern Sudan may now finally be embarking on its own separate existence). In each case, from Katanga to Somaliland, the theoretical state has encountered resistance on the national, regional, and global scale to their existence and have never yet been recognized. However, despite these setbacks, there currently has been one successful secession in Africa: that of Eritrea. Eritrea faced the same political and military difficulties that all other secession attempts have faced in Africa. Their host state of Ethiopia was perhaps the most revered on the continent and throughout the thirty year conflict had the international support of alternatively the United States and the USSR. The Organization of African Unity and its members remained unrelentingly in favor of territorial integrity for all African States. The Eritreans could not even gain regional recognition for their struggle. Despite all of this, they prevailed in their thirty-year struggle for independence. Critical to their success were four interwoven factors that allowed them to overcome those barriers that had stopped their secessionist predecessors: the anomalous history of Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Eritreans' practice of the theories of protracted war, the simultaneous social revolution the Eritreans carried out, and finally the Eritreans' pragmatic relations with their surrounding dissident groups. This work argues that these four central factors were the keys to Eritrea's aberrant and so far unique victory in their struggle for secession. / text