Le travail consiste à articuler la question de l'amour avec celle de l'époque à partir de la catégorie de discours telle qu'elle a été proposée par Lacan. Ceci afin de repérer les incidences du lien social contemporain - dans sa double détermination par les logiques consuméristes et marchandes et par le discours de la science - sur les liens amoureux. / Based on the works of Jacques Lacan and Cornelius Castoriadis, we propose an articulation of structure and history in order to build a psychoanalytic approach of the impacts of our era — in its dual determination by consumerist market logic, and the scientific discourse — on loving relationships. We have been able to propose a psychoanalytic, structural and historical approach of the causes, the conditions and consequences of indifference to things of love induced by capitalist discourse structure and the socio-historical purview witch is linked to it.

This dissertation performs close readings of a body of well-known East Asian films. The Japanese films discussed include Kitano Takeshi's Hana-bi (1997) and Fukasaku Kinji's Battle Royale (2000). From Korea, the dissertation focuses on Peppermint Candy (1999, Lee Chang-dong), The Coast Guard (2002, Kim Ki-duk), The Chaser (2008, Na Hong-jin), and four films by Park Chan-wook: Joint Security Area (1999), Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), and Lady Vengeance (2005). Through an analysis of these films, this dissertation argues that the narrative cinema of South Korea and Japan, produced between 1997 and 2008, uses the representation of violence to foreground and critique the ideology of capitalism. Both South Korea and Japan see substantial economic growth, collapse, and rebuilding in the twentieth century. From 1986 to 1991, Japan experienced an asset price bubble, but its collapse in 1991 led to the period known as Japan's “Lost Decade” which marked the end of the nation's post-war economic miracle. A comparable trajectory occurs in South Korea. Following significant development in the 80s and 90s, the Asian Financial Crisis brings South Korea to a halt in 1997. In what came to be locally known as the “IMF Crisis,” South Korea had to rely on a $21 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund. Just as Japan's economic collapse almost immediately preceded Korea's, both countries attempt to work through the trauma of the Lost Decade and the IMF Crisis in their national cinemas. Mirroring what audiences in East Asia were experiencing, the characters in these films endure instances of violent displacement. In response to their disenfranchisement, the protagonists of films such as Hana-bi and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance brutally lash out. But unlike in the majority of narrative cinema, the characters' violent actions do not lead to resolution. Instead, violence only creates a recursive loop where systemic inequity persists. As a result, the brutal cinema of Korea and Japan pushes the representation of violence to its limit point and reveals the tacit goal-oriented logic where it is repeatedly used as a justified means to legitimate ends. By illustrating and problematizing this idea, these films uncover how this ideology of violence is a central tenet to the larger structure that actually produced the source of alienation: neoliberal capitalism. This dissertation thus demonstrates two points. First is the way in which economic trauma in Japan resonates in Korea, a process that carries over into their respective cinemas. Second is how these films assert that the representation of violence does not merely concern issues of film and media, but rather shares a deeper connection with the dominant ideology within globalization. As the films demonstrate, capitalism ultimately benefits the capitalist, a dynamic that can only occur at the expense of the laborer. These films thus articulate the inherent violence in this worldview that disregards the wellbeing of the Other. At the same time, the films also contend that it is that single-minded impetus towards profit that fueled the economic collapse, an almost inevitable result of the region's furious adaptation of industrial capitalism in a process referred to as ‘compressed modernity.’ Less interested in the enormous prosperity resulting from modernization in the region, the films confront and lament the often neglected but equally exorbitant costs. The violent cinema of South Korea and Japan thus insists that the financial crises of the late twentieth century, the persistence of economic inequality, the cinematic representation of violence, as well as the growth of its own industries, constitute a knot that can only be understood in its totality.

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<p> This dissertation examines the interrelationship between higher education and the capitalist socio-economic system in the United States. The central argument is that both the growth of colleges and universities, and the development of a sociology of higher education, have been dependent upon, and serve to support, the historical transformation of the socio-economic system from laissez-faire to corporate capitalism. A socio-economic elite which has dominated the development of scientific knowledge and the growth of college and universities since colonial times, has profitably invested its riches in reshaping higher education to serve the dictates of the new capitalism in its corporate form. An examination of college and university financing, educational philosophy, and the social science practiced by professors shows that these changed to accommodate changes in the socio-economic system. The cumulative emphasis has been, and continues to be, on the production, sale, and consumption of a practical (marketable) knowledge which furthers elite domination of the educational industry. </p> <p> The sociology of higher education, as it has developed over the past twenty years, provides an example of theory which furthers this elite domination. A review of three eminent theorists, Burton R. Clark, David Riesman, and Christopher Jencks, shows how their attempt to make colleges and universities autonomous from the surrounding socio-economic system makes higher edcation increasingly dependent upon, subservient to, that system. Clark's "active" education creates an Academic Revolution based upon the specialized expertise of academic disciplines which Riesman labels "the racecourses of the mind". The sociological raceciurse helps provide Jencks with an individualistic explanation to "accidents" of personality and luck. The argument presented herein suggests these inequalities are legitimated and sustained by the commitment of the education-as-autonomous theorists to a pluralistic ideology which ties the growth of higher education with the prevailing socio-economic arrangements of corporate capitalism. Briefly, the education-as-autonomous thesis developed by Clark, Reisman and Jencks provides a notion of pluralism (widely dispersed power) that encourages and helps to ensure the non-pluralistic domination of higher education by a corporate elite capable of transforming wealth into power. </p> </p> A summary review of the foundations of American sociology underscores the interconnections between this pluralism and German sociologist Max Weber's conception of scientific "objectivity". It is Weber's science, characterizing the sociologist as an objective analyst receptive to all data, rather than the science of Lester Ward and the Americans, which continues to be a major influence on the majority of sociologists educated in the United States. While Weber and Ward both developed a pluralistic science providing ideological support for American capitalism, Weber did so in a manner that seemed more value-natural. Weber was simply more inclined than Ward to make his values supporting the socio-economic structure of capitalism more covert. This supposed value-neutrality of Weber's sociology appeals to social scientists, legitimating and sustaining the professional practice which maintains their privileged position within the current socio-economic order. Weber attempts to make scientists as objectively autonomous from the larger socioeconomic system as the Clark-Riesman-Jencks thesis tries to make the universities. Accordingly, the pluralism of Weber's "constellations of interest" includes superman/wonderwoman sociologists capable of transcending the ordinary by pacifying passion in a professional manner. </p> </p> An examination of this sociological professionalis in two settings, the professional association and the university, indicates the importance of Weber's notion of scholarly objectivity as the central norm governing professional practice. adherence to the objectivity norm is of primary importance in giving rise to the view among many sociologists that sociology as "understanding" cannot be a practice. This conception of sociology has helped promote itself to become "the official view: of social reality--a view that encourages university professors to serve and protect elite interests, interests they recognize as becoming increasingly their own. Professional commitment and responsibility have come to mean participation in the development of Weber's "objective" science which continue to maintain the Clark-Riesman-Jencks myth that universities and professional associates are autonomous, objectively value-neutral and, therefore, apolitical. To act in a professional commitment which has come to mean service to, maintenance of, the socio-economic arrangements of today's corporate capitalism. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Entrepreneurs perceive and manage risk differently than investors (Palich & Bagby, 1995). As a result, entrepreneurs may underestimate the extent to which their ventures are perceived to be risky by a potential investor. Consequently, the entrepreneur is left with making assumptions that could be detrimental in obtaining the necessary capital to launch and grow the business. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a common set of perceived critical risk factors among a group of experienced investors that would cause them to reject a deal out of hand. The research methodology chosen for this study was the Delphi Technique, which consisted of three rounds of surveys with a group of 18 experienced Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists. The process identified 82 critical risk factors across 7 categories. Over half of these factors were rated between ‘Important’ and ‘Critically Important’ at a consensus rate of greater then 70%. Each participant reported an average of 11 critical risk factors, yet they rated more than 40 as ‘Important’ or ‘Critically Important’, suggesting there are conscious and subconscious factors involved in the decision process. Subjective factors such as relationship were rated with higher importance than more objective measurable factors such as revenue or market share. Venture Capitalists, as a group, had higher rates of consensus than the Angel Investors and there were distinct differences between each group regarding which factors are most important. The study is significant because it rated subjective based factors along with objective factors showing that investors tend to place more importance on trust and relationship building in the early stages of the investment process. The study also provided a framework for understanding the complexity of investment decision-making for the benefit of investors, entrepreneurs, and those who educate and mentor entrepreneurs. Finally, the study is significant for helping entrepreneurs understand the differences in perspective between Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists.

This thesis is a work of theory; it is also historical. It attempts to provide a critique of the categories through which the phenomena of agricultural development and land reform are habitually grasped. It is divided into three parts. In the first part three main theoretical orientations to the study of capitalist agrarian development are discussed, both abstractly and with reference to their accounts of Latin American rural society in the 1960's. It is argued that all three are unable to explain adequately the process of social and agrarian change. This inability is traced to the fact that all three reduce social totalities to two or more distinct sub-entities or sub-totalities. The author calls this general position the social problematic of dualism. Its inability. to account for social change is, he argues, traceable to the fact that the existence of the sub-entities into which social totalities are divided, is posited as theoretically prior to the relations which connect them. These points are pursued in the second and third parts of the thesis. In the second part an alternative to dualism' with pärticular reference to its variants of the separation of a realm of' industry from a realm of*agriculture, and of the separation of a realm of the economic from a realm of the social, is provided through a detailed theorisation of capitalist social relations. It is argued that the existence of distinct realms of agriculture, industry, economy and society is a real effect of the essential relations of capitalist society, and that these divisions must be transcended through an elucidation of the character of such relations. This is done by distinguishingi; three forms of capitalist development which are produced by these essential relations. Further examples of a dualist analysis in contemporary theorisations of petty commodity production, the world economy and the articulation of modes of production are discussed. In the third part the author returns to an examination of the Latin American context through a discussion of the case of Chile. The theoretical insights developed in the earlier parts are systematically applied to various aspects of Chilean history from the conquest of Latin America to the 1960's, and to the processes of land reform which covered the decade 1962-1973. It is suggested that the agrarian social transformations which this country experienced are only explicable in terms of a position which systematically transcends all dualist assumptions. / University of Bradford

Critics have alleged that the process of negotiating sovereign debt relief is unduly politicized and favors a global capitalist elite over national and democratic interests. This study evaluates the legitimacy of these criticisms by analyzing the cases of Russia and Poland in the six year period after the end of state communism in the 1990s. An alternate hypothesis, that the words of state leaders both in public and in meetings with influential global capitalist agencies determine the outcomes of key negotiations, is advanced through a careful analysis of video recordings of key speeches as well as other sources. A comparison of these cases is used to develop insights into the political role of transnational financial institutions and global capitalism. / Master of Arts

No / Is there an alternative to the undemocratic and unaccountable power of capitalist philanthropy? If people in sub-Saharan Africa at grass roots level are to regain control of their futures, they must bet everything on democracy. But the challenge this presents should not be underestimated. We need social relations through which solutions can be determined with individuals and community groups to serve their needs and over which they exert a high degree of direct responsibility. In the spirit of Ubuntu or ‘oneness’, local communities understand what is required to meet their diverse needs, whether they are revenue-generating options or changing behaviours and conditions that inhibit social transformation. Who owns and controls philanthropy, and how other forms of influence become attached to it, are questions that lie at the heart of any transformational agenda. A local ecosystem model starts from a very different set of principles – it reduces the domination and influence of capitalist philanthropy in global development and instead empowers local communities to drive forward change.

Esta pesquisa levanta os elementos formadores da identidade nacional croata; faz um acompanhamento das conquistas da União Europeia; analisa os atores sociais que se posicionam a favor da Croácia como membro da União Europeia, bem como o posicionamento daqueles que são contra o ingresso da Croácia na União Europeia. Os posicionamentos teóricos, entrecruzados com os dados práticos coletados, faz-nos refletir sobre ganhos e perdas dos croatas em sua relação com a União Europeia. Há tendências negativas da União Europeia, aqui expostas, que não estão explícitas em seus tratados, nem expressos por suas instituições. Importa, nesta pesquisa, alcançar um posicionamento crítico com relação aos atos econômicos, políticos e sociais relacionados com a soberania nacional dos países periféricos do Leste Europeu. Este trabalho coloca em discussão as estratégias dos países ricos da Europa no sentido de perseverarem competitivos em âmbito global, incorporando o mercado do Leste Europeu. Por isso, este estudo se debruça sobre o Alargamento e acordos assinados entre os países-membros da União Europeia; mudanças na legislação croata; influência estrangeira no desenvolvimento humano da Croácia, dados estatísticos da Croácia e de países da União Europeia que espelham fatores positivos e negativos relacionados com a sustentabilidade da soberania nacional. / This research raises the formative elements of Croatian national identity; makes a follow-up to the achievements of the European Union; it analyzes the social actors that are positioned in favor of Croatia as a member of the European Union, as well as the positioning of those who are against the ingress of Croatia into the European Union. The theoretical positioning, intercrossed with practical data collected, makes us reflect on gains and losses of the Croats in their relationship with the European Union. There are negative trends of the European Union, exposed here, that are not explicit in its treaties, nor expressed by its institutions. It is important, in this study, achieving a critical positioning with respect to economic, political and social acts related to national sovereignty of peripheral countries of Eastern Europe. This work puts into discussion the strategies of the rich countries of Europe in order to persevere competitive in global scope, incorporating the East European market. For this reason, this study focuses on the \'Enlargement\' and agreements signed between the member countries of the European Union; changes in Croatian legislation; foreign influence in human development of Croatia, statistical data of Croatia and the European Union countries that reflect positive and negative factors related to sustainability of national sovereignty.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:26:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 adriane.pdf: 496055 bytes, checksum: d2c89c42f285336fb478fa13eec1b69a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-09-24 / This paper analyzes the social security systems adopted by Brazil and Argentina, highlighting the common and differing aspects in different historic periods as well as their social repercussions. It highlights that the social security programs are, together with social assistance and healthcare, the most important forms of protection against social risks. As State policy, social security cannot be examined separately from their political and economic contexts, and although they are designed to assure indispensable means for sustenance for beneficiaries who are physically incapacitated, elderly, retired, unemployed, have family responsibilities, are jailed, or require assistance because of the death of the person on whom they were economically dependent, the policies suffer the impacts of neoliberal policies that are in ascension in Brazil and Argentina. In this light, we can highlight that the history of social security is marked by the contradictions of the capitalist system / O presente trabalho aborda os regimes de Previdência social, adotados no Brasil e na Argentina, destacando aspectos comuns e divergentes nos diferentes períodos históricos bem como suas repercussões sociais. Cabe, destacar, que os programas de Previdência social são, juntamente com os de assistência social e de saúde, os mais importantes para a proteção contra os riscos sociais, compondo o tripé da Seguridade Social. Como política do Estado, a Previdência Social não pode ser examinada separadamente do contexto político e econômico vigente e, embora tenha, por fim assegurar aos seus beneficiários, meios indispensáveis de manutenção, por motivo de incapacidade, idade avançada, tempo de serviço, desemprego involuntário, reclusão ou morte, esta política sofre os impactos do neoliberalismo, em ascensão no Brasil e na Argentina. Desta forma, podemos destacar que a história da Previdência social, é demarcada pelas contradições presentes no sistema capitalista