Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Gerad D. Middendorf / Although rural communities have great diversity, each rural community has resources that can be invested to develop community capital resources. Every rural community not only has resources that are held by local community members, each rural community is also embedded in a larger social network that has the power to exchange resources for its own benefit. Therefore, the holders of a rural community’s resources also have the power to influence the distribution of these resources. As a way to determine who holds the community’s capital resources and begin the community development process, Flora et al. (2006) encouraged rural community development practitioners to perform an assessment of their community’s built, financial, political, social, human, cultural, and natural capitals. The case study method was utilized for the research conducted in this study because of its ability to aid in determining the success or failure of Norton County Economic Development’s Downtown Program, which focused on the revitalization of Norton County’s downtown areas. It was revealed that many of the Downtown Development programs were successfully implemented because the resources that were controlled by local and outside power structures, which also constituted the dynamic and interactive power structure within that system, were identified, mobilized, and utilized in this rural economic development program. This study contributed to sociological knowledge because it looked at the ability of dynamic and interactive power structures to control capital resources in rural community development. As well, this study extended the literature on the importance of participation, solidarity, and the exchange of resources in rural community development, and added to the research on the use of community capitals in identifying and utilizing capital resources in planning rural community development programs that are successful.

That the centre of Christianity is rapidly shifting from the global North to the global South, particularly to Sub-Saharan Africa, is undoubtedly a great cause of celebration. But the impact of this shift on ethical life remains to be seen among many African believers both at individual and community levels. One main factor for this is that moral life for most believers continues to be guided by a traditional ethical framework which derives its foundational moral values and norms from the concepts of community and solidarity. In this way, African ethics shares significant similarities with Christian ecclesial ethics which regards church as an ethical community. But a conceptualisation that sees the church as an ethical community does not only find fertile grounds in African cultures and thereby enriched by its strong sense of community and solidarity but it also ought to meaningfully challenge and transform this cultural framework in order to formulate an ethics that is not just African but is genuinely Christian, evangelical and biblical. As this research argues, this is possible when the distinctive underpinnings of the gospel are taken seriously thereby ensuring a fruitful and sustained moral formation within Christian communities. / MA (Ethics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

That the centre of Christianity is rapidly shifting from the global North to the global South, particularly to Sub-Saharan Africa, is undoubtedly a great cause of celebration. But the impact of this shift on ethical life remains to be seen among many African believers both at individual and community levels. One main factor for this is that moral life for most believers continues to be guided by a traditional ethical framework which derives its foundational moral values and norms from the concepts of community and solidarity. In this way, African ethics shares significant similarities with Christian ecclesial ethics which regards church as an ethical community. But a conceptualisation that sees the church as an ethical community does not only find fertile grounds in African cultures and thereby enriched by its strong sense of community and solidarity but it also ought to meaningfully challenge and transform this cultural framework in order to formulate an ethics that is not just African but is genuinely Christian, evangelical and biblical. As this research argues, this is possible when the distinctive underpinnings of the gospel are taken seriously thereby ensuring a fruitful and sustained moral formation within Christian communities. / MA (Ethics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

In this thesis I explore the possibility for a renewed communitarianism. Rather than present this as a rival to liberalism, however, I present it as a supplement. I start from the viewpoint that there are two basic facts with normative consequences the reconciliation of which is the central task of moral and political philosophy. One fact is the fact of individuality, which I believe produces a normative requirement that all and only obligations that respect a certain kind of individual autonomy are legitimate. This fact is well explained by liberalism, and so I am to that extent a liberal. Where I differ from contemporary liberalism, and where I think there is room for a renewed communitarianism, is in explaining the limits of autonomy. There are, I contend, a wide array of basic and legitimate obligations that cannot be adequately explained (i.e. the legitimacy of which cannot be explained) by autonomy alone. The role for communitarianism, then, is to explain the nature of a second legitimating principle and how these two principles – respect for autonomy and respect for (what I call) fraternity – can work together to explain when various maxims and policies are legitimate or illegitimate. In the first part I explain the importance of communitarianism. In the second, I try and determine the nature of the principle that should be seen as representing the normative requirements of the fact of sociality: the second inescapable fact of moral and political philosophy, that while we are individuals we are never alone. I will ultimately argue for a version of solidarity based on the role ethical obligations play in incorporating the interests of others in one‟s own set of interests. In the final part I explain how the ethical obligation at the heart of solidarity should work and then how to reconcile the normative requirements of the fact of sociality with autonomy.

This study analyzes female friendship in four novels written by black diasporic women and examines the impact of race, class and gender on women’s relationships. The novels emphasize how women face the challenges of patriarchal institutions and other attempts to subjugate then through polygamy, neo-colonialism, constraints of tradition, caste prejudice, political instability and the Biafra war. This dissertation uses characterization and plot analysis to explore the different stories and messages the novels portray. As findings this study foregrounds the healing powers of female bonding, which allows women to overcome prejudice and survive, to enjoy female empowerment, and to extend female friendship into female solidarity that participates in nation building. However, another conclusion focuses on the power of patriarchy which constitutes a threat to female bonding and usually causes women’s estrangement.

This thesis materialized out of an urgency to legitimize more creative, plural, and curious ways of thinking critically about the implications of 9/11 specifically, and global terrorism generally. This thesis actively grapples with the question: how has feminist poetry written by Arab American women post 9/11 complicated, resisted, and re-imagined the creation of one homogenizing national narrative of the event? The data used in order to answer this research question comes from an analysis of the poetic work of five Arab American women, each of whom write explicitly within an anti-imperialist feminist framework. My thesis analyzes these poems in conversation with one another in order to synthesize and establish a pattern. In doing so, I extract three of the most prominent commonalities between the poems: (1) An insistence on dehomogenizing the Arab and the Arab American in direct contrast to the Western stereotypes that polarize and essentialize the Arab “other” (2) a desire to re-negotiate the politics of identity and visibility and (3) an ability to teach a way of suturing solidarity that is anti-imperialist, necessarily plural, and embodied as art. This thesis serves as a reminder that the groundwork for building more imaginative, creative, and generative coalitions has already been laid. It concludes that in learning from places of artistic re-visioning, it becomes more possible to chart connections and provoke loyalties that are resonant, resilient, and revolutionary.

The principle of solidarity versus the principle of equivalence in the Czech social security law. This thesis deals with the principles of solidarity and equivalence in social security. The aim is to describe the importance of solidarity as a fundamental basis for the foundation of modern social security and to compare it with the principle of equivalence, which is often placed in contrast to solidarity. The work defines both principles generally and to capture their specific manifestations it focuses on pension security. The work consists of an introduction, two chapters which are divided into subsections, and a conclusion. The first chapter deals with both principles generally, describing their historical development and outlining ideas of selected domestic and foreign authors who have dealt with the principles in question. This chapter also summarizes the important jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court in the area. One of the subsections is dedicated to the principle of justice which is a principle closely related to the main principles in question. The second chapter is focused on pension security in the Czech Republic. It follows in detail the genesis of legal regulations of pension security in the Czech Republic in terms of the principles in question. It characterizes the current legal...

The thesis focuses on the benefits, that can be characterized as dependent on previous earnings. It is pension benefits, sickness benefits and benefits of passive employment policy in Czech Republic. These benefits will be described in terms of construction and elements with influence on equivalence. With this issue is also related to social policy. The aim of thesis is to compare the contributions to social security and state employment policies to benefits received from this system for employees and the self-employed, and compare them in relation to equivalence.

This study examines solidarity and fragmentations between trade unions and civil society organisations under the Labour and Civil Society Coalition LASCO, during the fuel subsidy mass-protest in Nigeria. To understand the basis of LASCO’s mobilisation during the strike/ mass-protest and the tension that follows the suspension of the strike within the alliance, the study utilises the literature on Social Movement Unionism especially in South Africa, with emphasise on trade unions community and political alliances. The classical SMU literature especially applied in South Africa and Brazil revealed that authoritarian industrialisation and repressive Apartheid work-place regime prompted unions to use innovative strategies of using their bargaining power to challenge the state, by rendering themselves ungovernable both in the work-place and in the society through linkages with communities. This study, relying on a case study method and participant observation of the strike and mass-protest in Kano, revealed that SMU mobilisation in Nigeria was triggered by predatory and weak state, whose rent seeking permeates the administration of subsidy in the oil industry. Secondly, the study argued that the tensions and divisions within LASCO alliance following the suspension of the perceived unilateral suspension of the strike by the Trade Unions explains the political and class orientation of both trade unions and civil society organisations. The study argues that Trade Unions behaviour in the context of the strike lean towards Hyman pessimist view of trade unions or what Beiler et’al called accommodatory strategy, a view that see unions as negotiators of order both in the work-place and in the larger society. On the other hand the civil society organisations typified multi-level organisations with different orientations that always seek for transformation of the social order or what Beiler et’al called transformatory strategy.

Thesis advisor: David Hollenbach / Transnational migration presents a problem for universal human rights. Because migrants do not have full citizenship in their countries of residence, they are left out of the distribution of social goods within a nation-state. Contemporary theories of justice largely remain trapped in the framework of the "bounded society," which members enter by birth and leave by death. The dissertation argues that the protection of universal human rights depends on turning particular relationships of exploitation into relationships of co-responsibility. The dissertation draws on two sources of Christian ethics, the Bible and Catholic social teaching on migration in order to maintain both the importance of the unity of the human family, the universality of human rights, and the importance of the political community. The work of three political philosophers suggests that in order to respond to transnational migration, an ethics of migration must maintain both the universality of human rights and the moral significance of the political community, but must discard the ideal of the bounded society. The resources of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament indicate that care for the stranger must be foundational to a Christian ethics of migration. Catholic social teaching on migration maintains both the universality of human rights and the right of the state to control its borders, but ultimately fails to address whether and in what circumstances the state should prioritize its citizens over migrants and potential migrants. The dissertation uses Jon Sobrino's reflections on Christian solidarity in order to address this lacuna in Catholic social teaching on migration. It argues that the political community must protect the human rights of migrants because, in most cases, migrants are in relationships with citizens. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.