This study analyses the evolution of social assistance in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, and closely examines the four countries’ different experiences with Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) schemes. A process-tracing methodology uses data from secondary sources, archival material, and 46 interviews to construct an actor-centred model and pursue a multiple-causality, historical approach. Outcomes are shown to result from interactions among central governments, religious organizations, secular organizations and territorial actors; and also from destabilizing forces. It is assumed that social assistance beneficiaries are forced to rely on these actors, whose attitudes are found to vary significantly due to their different interests, subjective perceptions of fairness, and preferences. Case histories of the four countries show that the periods prior to the 1970s were marked by minimal central government interest; indifferent, hostile, and/or divided secular organizations; and governmental partnerships with religious organizations. In the post-1970s periods, destabilizing forces co-occurring with centre-left governments resulted in new policies and changes, with relevant actors/organizations gradually welcoming pluralistic social assistance systems. The existence and extent of GMI schemes has been the principal factor differentiating social assistance developments among the four countries in more recent decades: Portugal is the only country with a national GMI, Italy and Spain have solely regional schemes, and Greece has no GMI at all. Because GMIs cut across traditional social assistance categories and are often linked with overall welfare system restructuring, establishment of GMIs and their subsequent maintenance require the co-occurrence of destabilizing forces and strong pro-GMI coalitions. Portugal exhibits the highest level of pro-GMI consensus nationwide, Greece the lowest,while Italy and Spain occupy intermediate positions. The institutional empowerment of territorial actors in the latter two countries was a precondition to emergence of local schemes, while destabilizing forces and strong local pro-GMI coalitions greatly increased the odds for establishing and maintaining them.

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the ways in which women and men, who set up a business in the service industries, perceive their pathways into self-employment, and the interaction between their business and family life. This thesis addressed two problems identified in current literature. Firstly, the gendered tradition and the reductionist approach of the push-pull theory, which does not offer an adequate understanding of paths into self-employment where both push and pull forces are involved. Secondly, the low visibility of the interactions between business and family life, and also the tendency for some research to portray partnerships between spouses in a harmonious light. Given the dominance of phenomenon-driven research, this study was aimed at adding to the theoretical consolidation of the study of gender and entrepreneurship. In theoretical terms, this research relied mainly on a synthesis between feminist theorizing, Bourdieu’s theory of practice and insights from studies that focus on biographical experiences leading to self-employment. This study adopted a qualitative research strategy, and used qualitative interviews as a research method. A theoretical sample was constructed, based on two criteria: gender and the industry in which the self-employed person operated. The sample focused on the Lisbon Region, and targeted self-employed people who set up a business between 2005 and 2008. A total of forty-eight interviews were conducted, involving twenty-three women and twenty-five men. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed in their original language: Portuguese. Only those quotations which have been used in the thesis were translated into English. The interpretation of interviews was based on a thematic analysis. Different pathways into self-employment were found. These were grouped under two main perspectives: seeing self-employment as a primary way of working; or as an alternative plan. The lived experiences of the interviewees also gave strength in exploring the various situations that can trigger a leap into entrepreneurship. These were conceptualized as trigger experiences. Two main sorts of trigger experiences were identified: crises (disruptive or corrosive) and encounters. These were deeply embedded in the interviewees’ educational, occupational and family experiences, going back to their social background, and the ways in which these experiences interact with gender relations.Two main contexts of interaction between family and the business were studied: “copreneurships” and “non-copreneurships”. Ambivalent feelings towards the former were illustrated through the cooperation and tensions involving spouses, as well as by the strategies that they devised in order to cope with these tensions. In “non-copreneurships”, the multiple contributions of spouses to interviewees’ activities as self-employed people revealed the connections between the family and business in these types of situation. Gender relations, social background in self-employment, and spouses’ positions in the business were decisive for placing interviewees’ lived experiences into context in this respect.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to analyse European policy of economic and social cohesion in the southern states of the European Union. The import of regional policy consists in the strengthening of cohesion through the diminution of existing differences in socioeconomic level between EU member states and theirs regions. Significantly high budget item assigned to the regional policy on the European level affirms its importance. States of the southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece) gained long-standing experience in the implementation of the cohesion policy, therefore they are suitable for the evaluation of the effectiveness. The thesis seeks to deliver potential recommendations for the effectiveness improvement on the national as well as on the European level.

Growth strata analysis and detrital-zircon geochronology are useful applications of stratigraphy to tectonic problems. Whereas both tools can contribute to kinematic analyses of supracrustal rock bodies, growth strata are also useful for analyzing the influence of tectonics on stratigraphic architecture. This study reports: 1) a conceptual model for growth strata development; 2) stratigraphic and kinematic analyses of growth strata architectures from growth structures in southeastern Utah, the Gulf of Mexico, and northeastern Spain; and 3) the detrital-zircon geochronology of the Salinian block of central coastal California. Kinematic sequence stratigraphy subdivides growth strata into kinematic sequences that are separated by kinematic sequence boundaries. Kinematic sequences can be further partitioned into kinematic domains based on the termination patterns of strata within a kinematic sequence. Salt- related fluvial growth strata from the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern Utah contain stratigraphic architectures that are unique to different kinematic domains. Offlap kinematic domains contain fluvial strata indicative of high slopes, low accommodation rates, and strong structural influence on paleocurrent direction. Onlap kinematic domains contain fluvial strata indicative of moderate slopes, high accommodation rates, and decreased structural influence on paleocurrent direction. The stratigraphic architecture of alluvial -fan thrust -belt growth strata in northeastern Spain does not display a marked correlation with kinematic domain, and is most easily interpreted using existing models for autocyclic alluvial -fan evolution. Detrital- zircon (U -Pb) geochronologic data from basement and cover rocks of Salinia suggest that Salinia originated along the southwestern margin of North America, likely in the vicinity of the Mojave Desert. The presence of Neoproterozoic and Late Archean detrital zircons in Salinian basement rocks also suggest that Salinian sediments were recycled from miogeoclinal sediments of the western margin of North America.

This thesis explores conviviality, a set of processes surrounding everyday living with difference. Based on 18 months of fieldwork (2007-2010) equally split between Casamance, Senegal, and Catalonia, Spain, the comparison takes the transnational lives of Casamançais and their embeddedness in both local fields into account. Locally, Casamançais often spoke of cohabitation (French) and convivencia (Castilian). Exploring discourses as well as practices related to encounters with difference and everyday socialising, this thesis addresses three questions: (1) How do migrants who come from a context of religious and ethnic diversity manage to make their way within new social contexts of cultural diversity? (2) How do their pre-migration experiences of diversity affect the ways in which they deal with the changing configurations of diversity that they encounter in Europe? (3) How do ways of living together with difference change over time in both sending and receiving contexts due to migration and other concurrent societal transformations? In four ethnographic chapters, I firstly explore everyday neighbourhood encounters and the centrality of multilingual greeting and temporary gatherings in open spaces for conviviality. A second chapter focuses on cultural and religious festivities and argues that, apart from the political recognition of diversity, the local residents’ sensuous experiences of difference are a crucial dimension of conviviality. Addressing challenges to conviviality, the third chapter engages with the processes of social closure, isolation and homogenisation which reveal alternative ways of living with difference. The fourth ethnographic chapter puts migration-related inequalities centre-stage, showing how conviviality also involves subtle forms of inequality. Analytically, this thesis suggests that conviviality is not a static conception of sociality, but one that is in-process. I find that socio-cultural differences are permanently negotiated, that ways of dealing with difference are translated between the old and new contexts of diversity, and that discourses and practices of living with difference are continuously (re)produced in everyday interactions. Casamançais perspectives reveal ways of maintaining minimal sociality among local residents who remain different.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a geopolítica da Turquia após as transformações que alteraram o ambiente geopolítico em escala mundial. Desde a fundação da República da Turquia, Ancara tem desenvolvido relações preferenciais com o Ocidente, implementando diversas adaptações políticas, sociais e econômicas a fim de superar definitivamente o legado otomano e se ajustar às exigências do mundo ocidental. Durante a Guerra Fria, a Turquia passou a integrar a Aliança Transatlântica e serviu como elemento de contenção da União Soviética. Entretanto, o fim do mundo bipolar reduziu a importância da Turquia para a ampla estratégia de contenção americana, trazendo a necessidade de novos argumentos para manter o seu peso estratégico. Ao mesmo tempo, surgiram novas oportunidades para Ancara, especialmente quanto ao desenvolvimento de relações econômicas e culturais com os Estados independentes da ex-União Soviética. Os atentados de 11 de setembro e a reação norte-americana colocaram a Turquia novamente no centro da política americana como exemplo de compatibilidade entre o Islã e a modernidade ocidental e no combate ao terrorismo. Diversas interpretações do espaço geopolítico mundial destacam a importância da Turquia, desde sua importância estratégico-militar até seu papel como interlocutora entre o Ocidente e o mundo muçulmano, dentro de uma sugestão de choque entre as civilizações. Apesar disso, a Turquia ainda enfrenta sérios desafios externos em todas as direções, entrelaçados com seus problemas internos que, por muitas vezes, ultrapassam suas fronteiras e se tornam assuntos transnacionais. / The aim of this research is to evaluate Turkey\'s Geopolitics after the tectonic forces that reshaped the balance of power and the geopolitcs at a world level. Since its foundation after the Ottoman Empire break up in the years immediately following World War I, Ankara started to adapt itself in Western structures, such as NATO. The collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe, raised some doubts about Turkey\'s importance to the West. However, the aftershocks at the beginning of the twenty-first century and the War on Terrorism launched by the US and its allies, pushed Turkey from the Western periphery to the very center of world politics, thrusting Turkey into an increasingly role in the Middle East, the Southeastern Europe, and Caucasus/ Central Asia. In addition, its geopolitcal position interpreted by some scholars reinforced its strategic and, at some extend, crucial position to the West and to the system evolution. At the same time, Turkey\'s aspiration to become a member of the European Union, its ethnic, linguistic and religious affinities to the Turkic republics combined with the energy resources issues eastwards and its security concerns in the Middle East, reveal the complexity and the challenges facing Turkey.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a geopolítica da Turquia após as transformações que alteraram o ambiente geopolítico em escala mundial. Desde a fundação da República da Turquia, Ancara tem desenvolvido relações preferenciais com o Ocidente, implementando diversas adaptações políticas, sociais e econômicas a fim de superar definitivamente o legado otomano e se ajustar às exigências do mundo ocidental. Durante a Guerra Fria, a Turquia passou a integrar a Aliança Transatlântica e serviu como elemento de contenção da União Soviética. Entretanto, o fim do mundo bipolar reduziu a importância da Turquia para a ampla estratégia de contenção americana, trazendo a necessidade de novos argumentos para manter o seu peso estratégico. Ao mesmo tempo, surgiram novas oportunidades para Ancara, especialmente quanto ao desenvolvimento de relações econômicas e culturais com os Estados independentes da ex-União Soviética. Os atentados de 11 de setembro e a reação norte-americana colocaram a Turquia novamente no centro da política americana como exemplo de compatibilidade entre o Islã e a modernidade ocidental e no combate ao terrorismo. Diversas interpretações do espaço geopolítico mundial destacam a importância da Turquia, desde sua importância estratégico-militar até seu papel como interlocutora entre o Ocidente e o mundo muçulmano, dentro de uma sugestão de choque entre as civilizações. Apesar disso, a Turquia ainda enfrenta sérios desafios externos em todas as direções, entrelaçados com seus problemas internos que, por muitas vezes, ultrapassam suas fronteiras e se tornam assuntos transnacionais. / The aim of this research is to evaluate Turkey\'s Geopolitics after the tectonic forces that reshaped the balance of power and the geopolitcs at a world level. Since its foundation after the Ottoman Empire break up in the years immediately following World War I, Ankara started to adapt itself in Western structures, such as NATO. The collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe, raised some doubts about Turkey\'s importance to the West. However, the aftershocks at the beginning of the twenty-first century and the War on Terrorism launched by the US and its allies, pushed Turkey from the Western periphery to the very center of world politics, thrusting Turkey into an increasingly role in the Middle East, the Southeastern Europe, and Caucasus/ Central Asia. In addition, its geopolitcal position interpreted by some scholars reinforced its strategic and, at some extend, crucial position to the West and to the system evolution. At the same time, Turkey\'s aspiration to become a member of the European Union, its ethnic, linguistic and religious affinities to the Turkic republics combined with the energy resources issues eastwards and its security concerns in the Middle East, reveal the complexity and the challenges facing Turkey.

Within the contemporary migration field, from a theoretic point of view, the communication aspect of it has been identified as an emerging priority, as its impact can affect both the public opinion and policymaking itself. In order to identify trends portraying migration narratives, as ways of representing the migration phenomena in a set historiographical context, a dataset comprehending migration-related campaigns has been developed during the timeframe 2009 - 2018. Throughout the EU Member States, as well as the European Southern Neighbourhood Partner Countries (SPCs), 135 campaigns were retrieved online, shedding light on which were the aspect of migration emphasised (such as integration and smuggling and trafficking prevention), as well as the main stakeholders involved in the production of such communication initiatives. Through the usage of a web-based research for the years 2019-2021, the aforementioned dataset has been updated, by collecting secondary data of qualitative and quantitate nature of publicly funded migration-related campaigns in the Southern European Region. Based on the data, an illustrative mapping of current trends have been developed. The work was done in partnership with ICMPD – International Centre for Migration Policy Development (Migration Dialogue and Cooperation Directorate), within the EU-funded EMM5 (EUROMED V) programme. This project is aimed at establishing a comprehensive framework on migration, as well as being responsible for the creation of the previous database, through the preceding phase of the EUROMED programme itself (EMM4 - EUROMED IV). Because of the nature of the project, as well as the publicness of the dataset, campaigns aimed at negatively affect migrants/refugees’ lives have not been included in the research, in order to avoid at providing a platform to such messages. The 95 newly-gathered campaigns have been cross-referenced in order to highlight differences and similarities with the previous ones in terms of the overall narrative; stakeholder involvement; and the geo-political context in which the campaigns were made. Moreover, a particular focus was on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and its influence on the stakeholders involved in the migration-related activities themselves. The analysis of the migration-related campaigns reveals that the implementation of such initiatives has grown exponentially, with a surge during the year 2021, with 61 campaigns produced. Moreover, key trends in the communication narratives have been identified within the integration thematic area (49%), followed by the hate speech and xenophobia prevention (13%) and the asylum system (13%). The support and format used were aligned with the EMM4 dataset, as webpages and social media represent the main methods used throughout the Southern European Region. Regarding the stakeholders involved in the funding of the migration-related initiatives, the private sector has become a key player in the field, either financing or co-financing campaigns throughout the three years analysed, increasing from 4 campaigns between 2009-2018, to 32 in the timeframe 2019-2021. / Inom det samtida migrationsfältet har kommunikationsaspekten identifierats som en framväxande prioritet, eftersom att nyhetsskildringar om migration kan influera både den allmänna opinionen samt politisk beslutsfattande. För att identifiera trender som skildrar migrationsberättelser, i syfte att kunna representera migrationsfenomenen i ett fastställt historiografiskt sammanhang, har en datauppsättning som analyserar migrationsrelaterade kampanjer utvecklats under åren 2009-2018. I EU:s medlemsstater, såväl som den europeiska Southern Neighborhood Partner Countries (SPCs), har 135 kampanjer identifierats online. Dessa kampanjer belyser vilka aspekter av migration som betonades (såsom integration, smuggling och förebyggande arbete mot människohandel), såväl som de primära intressenterna som är involverade i produktionen av sådana kommunikationsinitiativ. Genom användningen av en webbaserad forskning för åren 2019-2021 har ovannämnda datauppsättning uppdaterats genom att samla in sekundärdata av kvalitativ och kvantitativ karaktär från offentligt finansierade migrationsrelaterade kampanjer i den sydeuropeiska regionen. Utifrån underlaget har en illustrativ kartläggning av aktuella trender tagits fram. Arbetet gjordes i partnerskap med ICMPD – International Centre for Migration Policy Development (Directorate Migration Dialogue and Cooperation), inom det EU-finansierade programmet EMM5 (EUROMED V). Detta projekt syftar till att upprätta ett heltäckande ramverk för migration, samt att ansvara för skapandet av den tidigare databasen, genom den föregående fasen av själva EUROMED-programmet (EMM4 - EUROMED IV). På grund av projektets karaktär och datamängdens offentlighet har kampanjer som syftar till att negativt påverka migranters och flyktingars liv inte inkluderats i forskningen, för att undvika att ge sådana budskap en plattform. De 95 nyinsamlade kampanjerna har korsrefererats för att belysa skillnader och likheter med de tidigare när det gäller den övergripande berättelsen: involvering av intressenter och det geopolitiska sammanhanget i vilket kampanjerna gjordes. Dessutom låg ett särskilt fokus på effekterna av covid-19-pandemin och dess inflytande på de intressenter som är involverade i migrationsrelaterade aktiviteter. Analysen av de migrationsrelaterade kampanjerna visar att genomförandet av sådana initiativ har ökat exponentiellt, med en ökning under år 2021, med 61 kampanjer producerade. Dessutom har nyckeltrender i kommunikationsberättelserna identifierats inom det tematiska området integration (49%), följt av förebyggande av hatretorik och främlingsfientlighet (13%) och asylsystemet (13%). Stödet och formatet som användes anpassades till EMM4-datauppsättningen, eftersom webbsidor och sociala medier representerar de huvudsakliga metoderna som används i hela Sydeuropa. När det gäller de intressenter som är involverade i finansieringen av de migrationsrelaterade initiativen, har den privata sektorn blivit en nyckelaktör på området, antingen finansierings- eller samfinansieringskampanjer under de tre analyserade åren, ökade från 4 kampanjer mellan 2009-2018 till 32 kampanjer mellan åren 2019-2021.