This diplomatic and military history offers a new interpretation of the origins of the three fighting fronts during the final phase of the Cold War in Angola, Central America, and Afghanistan. Vaguely remembered today as proxy wars on the periphery, in fact, these were protracted revolutionary civil wars and regional contests for the balance of power in which millions died, while at the same time they were central to global superpower confrontation. Analysis focuses on the strategy and policy of the United States. The chronology from 1975 to 1982 covers the Ford administration's covert action intervention in the Angolan Civil War, which came to grief at the hands of Cuban troops; Jimmy Carter's effort to conduct foreign policy based on principles, which ran foul of power considerations in Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Afghanistan; and Ronald Reagan's embrace of these wars early in his first term as part of the revival of U.S. strength in its competition with the Soviet Union. The principal argument is that, while generally undervalued as controversial small wars of dubious significance, these wars were in fact integral to U.S. experience of limited war during the Cold War following victory in World War II. In strategic terms, the main conclusion is that the U.S. restricted itself to conducting economy of force contingency operations in Angola, Central America, and Afghanistan as a result of its costly struggles in Korea and Vietnam. Despite declaring these peripheral wars to be central to the Cold War, avoiding the costs of involving U.S forces directly in Third World conflicts and minimizing the risks of escalation with the Soviet Union were overriding political and military imperatives.

This dissertation is a descriptive study in which the changed meaning of nonalignment in international politics between the years 1961 - 1992, is analysed. The concept non-alignment as manifested in four chronological phases of the Non-Aligned Movement {1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990/92] is analysed, compared and evaluated. The comparison shows that the meaning of non- alignment underwent a change in each of these four phases. It's meaning changed from a literal meaning in phases 1-3 [in which the focus shifted from being political to economic], to a symboric or figurative meaning in phase 4. The changes to the meaning of non-alignment came about mainly as a result of interaction with the international context and, to a lesser extent, due to the role of influential states in NAM. These changes were of critical importance for non-alignment to remain relevant and for NAM to be able to make a potential impact on an ever-changing world. / Political Sciences / M.A. (International Politics)

Globalization and international competition put pressure on local communities to adjust to international standards of price and quality in production. Tirupur in India produces clothes for exports to the first world market. Because of the process of dyeing and bleaching of fabrics the river Noyyal that flows through the town and the surrounding ground water have become polluted. At the local level actors, like the state, business, NGOs and grassroots take action in different ways depending on their interests. The aim with this thesis is both to analyze the situation at the local level from the views and actions of different actors and how the local situation is influenced by globalization. Qualitative interviews have been made with representatives from these actors in Tirupur and its surroundings. This material has then been analyzed from the theory of Third World political ecology and globalization. The conclusions drawn from this study are that the situation in Tirupur cannot exclusively be explained at just one level. Local, national and global politics affect Tirupur. A politicized environment characterizes the local situation where actions against the pollution are not taken for the benefit of the powerful. People also lack empowerment to take action because of dependency on the industry. At the national level centralization is a problem in India because it results in difficulties for the civil society and people to reach elected representatives and influence from the local community. Another problem is the policy maker’s lack of understanding of the local situation. At last globalization limits the way to handle the pollution because of the global competition and the retreat of the state. But it also gives possibilities for the civil society to grow stronger internationally, perhaps with the possibility to create a change.

In this essay I’m asking if the Scandinavian countries Sweden, Denmark and Norway use a third world perspective on gender equality in their development aid politics. A third world perspective on gender equality is a perspective that considers the special experiences and priorities of women in the third world. My point of view is that third world perspectives represent women in the third world better than western perspectives. To determine if the countries uses a third world perspective on gender equality or not I have examined the countries aid policies with a third world theory. The material that I have used is policy documents on gender equality from the three countries and my method is discourse analysis. My study shows that Sweden Denmark and Norway uses a third world perspective on gender equality to a certain extent. There are some aspects of the third world perspective on gender equality that none of the countries reflect about. Norway is the country with the best result in the study.

The aim of this essay is to critically consider Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things from a postcolonial feminist perspective, with a special focus on how she models different representations of women, taking as a background the discussions within postcolonial feminism about subalternity and the representations of women from the so-called Third World in theory and literature, as well as the concept of agency from Cultural Studies. This purpose is reached by studying and comparing three main female characters in the novel: Mammachi, Baby Kochamma and Ammu, centering on their different ways of relating to the male hero of the novel, Velutha, an Untouchable in the lingering caste system of India. The essay argues that Roy has contributed with diverse representations of subaltern women in the ‘Third World’ who—despite their oppressed and marginalized status—display agency and are portrayed as responsible for their own actions.

Despite an increase of biotechnical studies in third world countries, the bioinformatical side is largely lacking. In this paper we attempt to further the bioinformatical capabilities of east Af-rica. The project consisted of two teaching segments for east African doctorates, one as part of an academic workshop at ILRI, Kenya, and one in a small class at SLU, Sweden. The project also included the generation of two simple to use bioinformatical pipelines with the explicit aim to be reused by novice bioinformaticians from the very same region. The viability of the piplines were verified by generating transcriptional expression level differences for Paeni-bacillus polymyxa strain A26 and whole genome annotations for Setaria digitata. Both pipe-lines may have some merit for the collaborative effort between ILRI and SLU to annotate Eleusine coracana, a draught resilient crop, the annotation of which may save lives. The teaching material, source code for the pipelines and overall teaching impression have been included in this paper.

Mexico and China established official diplomatic relations in 1972. Since then, their mutual economic, political and social links have been developed in an unprecedented way. However, from the perspective of International Relations, the analytical richness of the relationship is obscured by hegemonic conceptualisations of global power, materiality or teleological truths. The literature dealing with the relation in itself has not prioritised a theoretical or holistic approach. Through an analysis of the discursive production of a series of diplomatic, media and academic sources, this thesis demonstrates that, embedded in the great technological and political transformations of the contemporary world, Mexico‐China relations have embodied a complex process of knowledge formation out of the confrontation of their socially constructed conceptions of time, space and otherness: a cultural encounter. During the period from 1972‐2012, not only did Mexico‐China relations involve state and trade interactions, but also a complex intellectual construction of the world and of themselves ranging from the formation of a common anti‐Western identity and the erection of binary oppositions between them, to the formulation of rich proposals for self-criticism and cultural learning. Mexico-China cultural encounter, therefore, provides a fundamental case for understanding world politics and human interaction from a truly global perspective beyond reductionist views of materiality.

Telecommunication is one of the keys to sustainable national development in South Africa. Where other kinds of public infrastructure have collapsed, mobile operators are reaching people in rural areas (without roads, rails, or a stable power supply). Telecommunication also is a fast moving high-tech field where technology transfers occur regularly. Technology transfer however is a complex subject where governmental regulations, social and cultural aspects, needs, expectations, aspirations, financial abilities, and technological capabilities play a major role. Therefore transfer models that neglect these aspects often cause ineffective utilization of technology. Telecommunication technology transfers between two parties at different hierarchical levels of technology know-how/utilization (as between multi-national companies and less developed countries (LDCs)/South Africa) often occur with limited or no advantages to the LDC. A transfer model is therefore needed to improve the situation and make technology transfers a process from which both parties can benefit simultaneously. This research attempts to supply advice and guidelines to the telecommunication industry of South Africa on how to improve the situation and conduct action in the future. The model was derived at through a background study and analysis, a literature study on existing transfer models, research on the current problem and a situation analysis on the basis of the model. A number of aspects present are not up to standard and should get special attention urgently. It is within the industry's power to correct these. The government also has a vital role to play to ensure sustainable growth and to allow telecommunications to play its part in national development. The situation can be improved through the use of the transfer model but also with a "simultaneous-situation-improvement-plan" which involves rural awareness, quality of education, crime reduction and a focus alignment when doing rural network expansion and/or investments Telecommunication can no longer remain just as a luxury to the few privileged in big civilised cities and a dream to the rural citizens. If this way of thinking is continued, South Africa will certainly pay a very high price. / Thesis (MEng (Technology Management))--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) / unrestricted

This thesis deals with the issue of job and working conditions in British call centers located in the third world countries (understood in developing countries and countries of the former Soviet Union). The aim of this thesis is to analyze the existing job opportunities and working conditions and the applied principles and practices of human resource management and marketing in the call center of the British International company Cupid plc in Ukrainian city Dnepropetrovsk, identify the problems and suggest solutions. The thesis is divided into eight chapters: organizing (explains the essence of organizing and classifies the types of organizational structures), call center (describes the traditional call center model, modern trends and problems in call centers), international company (explains the philosophy and strategy of companies at the international market); the third world countries (defines and characterizes the problems of the third world countries), human resource management of the international company (defines and explains the strategy, policies and practices of human resources management of the international company); marketing of the international company (defines and explains the strategy, policies and procedures of customer relationship management of the international firms); call centers of the international companies in the third world countries (gives examples of the activities and problems of British call centers in India, Pakistan and the Philippines); British call center in Ukraine (analyzes specific British call center of the international company in Ukrainian city Dnepropetrovsk). This thesis is processed using literature, case studies, internal documents and personal experience of the author.

This thesis seeks to understand the formation and representation of local, national and international identities of nations and their societies by critically analysing a big public international art event, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. It will thus address two complex historical and theoretical problems: first, the role such biennales have had in the nation building process for several Third World countries; second, the established hierarchies in theorizations of contemporary art from the global south. By addressing these problems, it aims to illustrate the issue at the heart of this thesis: to find the praxis which can break the model of binaries and representations established in the concept of modernity.