Inaug.-Diss.--Jena. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 75-80.

Drawing on the critical social theories of Jean-Paul Sartre and Jurgen Habermas, I take a close look at the "oppositional criticism" of Said and Lentricchia and attempt to illuminate the unlit places there, which I refer to as "situational tensions." My discussion of Said's and Lentricchia's situational tensions is made in terms of their self-image, theoretical affiliation, and their strategy of totalizing about their life-world. I argue that Said's and Lentricchia's adoption of the "intellectual" as their self-image is their way of recognizing a certain type of subject as the precondition for basic change. Based on this recognition, their affiliating with Marxism or Foucault results in an emphasis on producing a cultural counterdiscourse of intellect emancipation. However, literary critics must come to an understanding of the systemic impediments to their emancipatory projects. Said and Lentricchia, constrained by the pressure to avoid conceptions of social totality and human totality, have failed to give full articulation to a much needed moral philosophy, even though they both show a keen interest in the ethical. Their theoretical hesitance has blunted the humanist edge of the "intellectual," which is the central figure in their "oppositional criticism." The demise of the intellectual-critic reflects the fundamental antinomy of today's intellectual work itself: it cannot be done if it is isolated from praxis, from involvement in political movement or political action; but neither can it be done well if it is isolated from the pressures of competing intellectual ideas in the current stream of intellectual debate which is located in the university. To recognize this intellectual antinomy, however, is not just to ratify what has been and must be. What begins with Said's and Lentricchia's need for a changed concept of the "intellectual" and for literary politics may lead finally to the intellectual's need for a changed world, and a search for proper strategies in order to play a more active part in the process of change.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri, School of Mines and Metallurgy, 1930. / The entire thesis text is included in file. Typescript. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed October 19, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-107).

Within the flourishing area of new economic geography, increased attention is currently being paid to a variety of 'alternative' sources of credit and finance. As one of these forms, British credit unions are currently particularly 'sexy'. One reason for this status relates to increasing interest (both within the academy and outside) in the role(s) credit unions can play in relieving the effects of financial exclusion and poverty throughout Britain. In the context of the growing concerns of 'New Labour' about these issues, credit unions are progressively being posited as one route to a more inclusive society, both in social and economic terms. However, through an analysis that positions credit unions as 'civil', embodied, institutions in the specific context of their development in Kingston upon Hull, this thesis proposes that the achievement of such a goal is not a straightforward issue. This work questions the extent to which British credit unions have historically contributed towards financial inclusion, finding that such evidence remains partial and somewhat underlain by a 'faith' in the merits of the credit union model. As a consequence, it emphasises that in taking the route to a more financially included society through increased usage of credit unions, a number of barriers to their development and growth will have to be surmounted. These barriers are highlighted within this work through an exploration of a prevailing credit union discourse, which draws attention to the linkages between the structural features of the British credit union environment, and the manifestations of these features within localities such as Hull. In so doing, it concludes by outlining a number of challenges and changes facing the British movement that are reflective of a growing awareness of these barriers and their effects. It is argued that these features will broadly affect (and effect) the contribution made by credit unions within a more (financially) inclusive society in the years to come.

This dissertation examines Soviet theoretical and methodological perspectives on ethnicity; the impact of political and economic policies on the study of ethnicity in the Soviet Union; and the impact of these policies on Soviet nationalities. In order to ground the theoretical discussions of ethnicity, I examine nationalities policy among two ethnic groups: the Chukchi and Asiatic Eskimo of the Soviet Far North. The degree to which these people have been able to retain "traditional" forms of their herding and hunting economies is seen, by both the state and the peoples themselves, as having a serious impact on the ability of groups to maintain their ethnic identity and cultural autonomy. In Soviet research and politics there is no doubt that ethnicity is a very real force which can have a dramatic impact on economic, political, and cultural processes, and as such is not a concept to be dealt with only in theoretical discussions, but through practical policies applied to daily life as well. Marxist-Leninist theory has provided a common framework for both the state and ethnography. The role of ethnographers has been to strengthen Marxist-Leninist theory in these areas where it is most deficient and to aid in the implementation of policy by providing information and an understanding of the peoples and cultures to which policy is directed in the Soviet Union. While development policies have varied to take into account the wide range of social and economic conditions of the minorities, all peoples and cultures have eventually been fit into the bureaucratic structure of the Soviet state. The problem of ethnicity will be examined in this dissertation at two levels. The first level is that of theory, and looks at how the Soviets approach ethnicity as a field of study, and how it fits into their world-view. The second level is that of how nationalities policies, which attempt to integrate Marxist-Leninist theory with the realities of social, economic and political life in the multinational Soviet Union, have been implemented in the Soviet Far North.

This thesis answers the question how and why do individuals specialise in different types of political participation? By examining the degree to which individuals concentrate their political activities within one type of political participation, or spread them out across many. This thesis complements previous research on rates of political participation; and adapts and extends existing theories of political participation to explain differences in the degree of specialisation between different groups in society and between countries. Using data from the European Social Survey, covering as many as 21 European countries, and applying a range of different statistical methods, I distinguish four types of political participation: voting, conventional and unconventional political participation and consumer politics. I show that in countries with higher levels of socio-economic development, more democratic experience, and an increased presence of mobilising agents, the degree to which individuals concentrate their political activities within one type of political participation is higher, regardless of the accessibility and responsiveness of their political institutions. This is partly due to the fact that these countries have a higher educated population and that higher educated individuals specialise more. Specialisation also varies along the lines of other socio-demographic divisions, such as those based on gender. Moreover, I show that in contexts in which political issues are salient, such as during an election year, individuals are more likely to engage in non-electoral types of political participation if they also vote. This implies that specialisation is reduced during times of country-wide political mobilisation. The final finding of my thesis is that non-Western immigrants tend to concentrate their political activities less within one type of political participation than the majority population in Western Europe. Western immigrants specialise quite differently, suggesting differences in the way in which they are mobilised. As well as providing an important contribution to the study of political participation, these findings are relevant to discussions regarding citizen engagement and representation.

Ever since the military takeover of 1952, the post-monarchic political system of Egypt has been dependent upon a variety of mechanisms and structures to establish and further consolidate its powerbase. Among those, an intertwined web of what could be described as ‘patronage politics’ emerged as one of the main foundations of these tools and was utilized by the regime to establish the fundamentals of its rule. Throughout the post-1952 era, political patrons and respective clients were existent in Egyptian politics, shaping, to a great extent, the policies implemented by Egypt's rulers at the apex of the political system, as well as the tactics orchestrated by the populace within the middle and lower echelons of the polity. This study aims at analyzing the factors that ensured the durability of patronage networks within the Egyptian polity, primarily focusing on the sort of social structural reconfiguration that has been taking place in the popular communities of Egypt in the beginning of the 21st Century. Dissecting the area of Misr Al Qadima as an exemplar case study of Cairo’s popular quarters, the research mainly focuses on examining the role of the lesser notables, those middle patrons and clients that exist on the lower levels of the Egyptian polity within the ranks of the National Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood. Henceforth, the sociopolitical agency of these lesser notabilities shall constitute the prime concern of the writing and, in doing so; this research also attempts to draw some linkage between the micro-level features of the popular polities of Cairo and the macro-level realities of the Egyptian polity at large, in the contemporary period.