Avhandlingen söker svara på två förberedande frågor: hur man kan tolka Theodor W. Adornos kritiska teori idag? Samt hur en sådan tolkning kan göras relevant för aktuell teologisk problematik?

Background: The forthcoming shortage of labor, due amongst other things to demographical issues and the increasing mobility of people on the labor market, will affect the possibilities to attract and retain employees with valuable key competencies. To win the talent war employer branding has arisen to become a strategy to overcome this threat. Purpose: To investigate and analyze the outside perspective of employer branding – the employer image – of a knowledge intensive organization through a study of AstraZeneca. Course of action: An approach based on critical theory has been used to generate results, including both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results: The workforce is at risk of becoming a scarce resource and the situation seems to be most alarming in areas related to natural sciences, and the pharmaceutical industry in particular. The employer image of AstraZeneca has been found to be very positive, showing high ratings of brand recognition and employer of choice, but the underlying reasons for these results have not been proven. Attraction between employer and employee could occur if the individual is able to see how to reach self-fulfillment through contributing to the company purpose.

This thesis aims to explore the different aspects of the phenomenon of migration in Greece, as a case study. The choice of country is motivated by its geographical position at Europe’s external borders. In order to gain an insight into the reality that migrants are faced with when searching for a better life in Europe, a field study was conducted in Athens, Greece during a period of six weeks in the spring of 2010. The field work included interviews with various actors and individuals that are directly involved in migration issues, informal discussions with migrants and personal observations. Additionally, secondary sources such as previous studies were used. The framework used to approach the material included elements from neo-institutionalism, hermeneutics as well as critical theory. The most important conclusions reached incorporate that the rights of migrants are not respected in any aspect of the societal sphere, or in other words the three institutional pillars, the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive. As a result, there are double standards applied to Europeans respective migrants. As a possible cause of the problematic situation described, underlying perceptions of national identity versus "otherness" are identified. These perceptions derive from a deeply rooted acceptance of social constructions such as national borders, as undisputable facts.

This thesis aims at critically examining the specific place of the &quot / critical&quot / and &quot / radical&quot / theories within both the theory of public administration and political theory, particularly in terms of the discursive participatory framework they offer. The fundamental question dealt with is whether or not the power and dependence analyses of these approaches (which are treated as &#039 / marginal&#039 / in the field) is convincing for an egalitarian, comprehensive and socially transformative democratic governance. Since a discussion of this sort essentially problematizes the reduction of political equality to a proceduralist and abstract philosophical equality, not to commit a similar fallacy of &quot / apriorism&quot / , the study incorporates the observations on LA-21 Turkey processes as a local governance program, in terms of a concrete contribution to theoretical discussion. In the light of direct observations, interviews and data obtained from secondary resources regarding the participatory practices, the level of organization and current capacity of political representation are inferred to be also decisive on the capacity to participate, owing this decisiveness substantially to the economic and social resources in the real social formation, hence the conditions of production of local knowledge are consequently identified as far from reflecting a democratic environment purified from power relations. Highlighting the risk for the notion of self-governance to gain a hegemonic functionality for bourgeoisie democracy concealing and perpetuating social inequalities, the thesis argues for shifting the inquire for the dominant class, from solely political-administrative sphere to civil society, and the maintainable and reproductive conditions and mechanisms of dominance between these two spheres.

This qualitative study sought to understand the ways classism, as it intersects with racism and sexism, affects how low wage-earning women negotiate their work world in the academy and the way the academy functions to create, maintain, and reproduce the context within which oppression is able to emerge. Field research took place at State University, a pseudonym for a Land Grant, Research Extensive institution located in the Southwest. Through the lenses of critical theory and critical feminist theory the stories of six women employed as custodial workers, nine administrators employed at State University, and two State University employees involved in the community's Living Wage initiative, were analyzed. The lives of women employed as custodial workers are largely unremarked and undocumented, and the ways in which their work serves to make the academy possible have been unacknowledged. This study found that the job of cleaning in the traditional higher education environment is laced with challenges. The nature of the academy, the ethos and operation of State University, and the interlocking systems of classism, racism and sexism fuse together arrangements of power that simultaneously obliterate and render these women agonizingly visible through systems of oppression. In an environment where honor is conferred upon "the educated," the custodial participants, whose opportunities were limited due to their social locations, exist on the border of the academy. Their marginality is reinforced daily, as they are in constant contact with higher-status individuals who perform raced, classed, and gendered behaviors that are woven into the fabric of our society. The study also found that the custodial participants and the university administrators are locked in a relationship of mutual distrust. State University administrators do not trust the custodians and the custodians do not trust State University administrators. Furthermore, existing at both the literal and metaphorical "bottom" of the organization, custodians are among the first to feel the impact of major institutional shifts, such as increases in student and faculty bodies, and large-scale economic recovery initiatives. Additionally, I reconceptualize the notion of "borrowed power" to name the impermanence of the authority which Black custodial supervisors, and people of color in general, hold in our racialized society. Finally, the data decidedly point to White male students as primary actors and architects of the overtly hostile work environment within which the women work. The custodial participants negotiate these challenges with facility. They find creative ways to resist and to negotiate the obstacles they face. Unfortunately, they also occasionally internalize negative messages and are complicit in their marginality. Administrators who participated in the study were aware of these conditions, but remained silent on the issue of resolution. Through various intentional (if unconscious) State University policies, practices, rules, norms, behaviors, and structures that sometimes act in insidious, hidden ways, the dominant groups? interests continue to be pursued while the interests, needs, and even the very presence of marginal members is ignored. Thus, systems of domination and subordination are produced, reproduced, validated, and institutionalized in the academy. This process is presented in a Conceptual Map of How Systems of Oppression Flourish and are Re/produced in the Academy. The findings of this study contribute to existing bodies of knowledge that discuss racial, gender, and economic inequality. Yet it opens new lines of inquiry into the overlapping conditions of gender, racial, and economic marginality as they impact the lives of women custodial workers in the academy. The findings issue a clarion call for institutions of higher education, one of our nation?s longstanding and respected foci of social change, to tap into its available expertise to end oppression, beginning in its own "backyard."

Owing to the unfortunate accidents happened in Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan on 11th March 2011, renewable energy has again become one of the mostly referred issues in energy related discussions all around the world. Generally, the states are expected to give incentives to the renewable energy sources in order to help the development and spread of those clean energy technologies against the fossil based energy sources. However, the levels of state subsidy to renewable energy sources in Turkey which was announced in 2010 with an Amendment Law was not possible to understand by following the mentioned way of thinking. Unlike other studies in the field of renewable energy policies, the thesis problematizes the role of the states in the formation of renewable energy markets and prefers to use the critical theory while trying to understand how the renewable energy policies in Turkey are formed. The state policies are tried to be understood as a result of historical state and society relations rather than looking for linear reason and result relationships. State is seen not a unified actor but rather a battleground of competing projects each of which arise from a certain way of thinking or in other words, rationalities of government. Consequently, the traces of developmentalism, neoliberalism and neomercantilism are followed starting from the formation of the Turkish electricity market in the late 1990s and the preparation of Renewable Energy Law in 2005 until the aftermath of the recent Amendment to the Renewable Energy Law in 2010.

In spite of a lively debate during the last century, there is still no scholarly consensus about the identity of the opponents in Colossians. The aim of this essay is not to put forward yet another attempt to solve this complex historical problem, but rather to examine how boundaries are drawn between the author and the opponents in Colossians and how similar boundaries are maintained, developed or even created in scholarly historiography. In what Jonathan Z. Smith refers to as the “Protestant Historiographic Myth”, nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars of biblical studies often understood early Christian developments in terms of an original purity that was lost at a later stage. According to this historiographic construction, the essence of Christianity was distorted through interaction with the cultural and religious environment of the Roman Empire and through the incorporation of pagan elements. Throughout this essay, I argue that this essentialist conception of early Christianity has shaped the construction of the opponents of Colossians in scholarly literature. In studies of Colossians, many modern scholars have, problematically, recreated the dichotomy between an original apostolic Christianity and later Hellenized deviations. This legacy of the “Protestant Historiographic myth” is mainly expressed in two ways, either as an opposition between the author’s pure apostolic Christianity and the opponents, who are understood as a syncretistic group, composed of a mixture of various Hellenistic elements, or as a dichotomy between Christianity, as represented by the author, and “religion”, as represented by the opponents.

Abstract This essay elaborates the international New Gramscian School, which is one branch of critical theory, through comparing with mainstream international relation theories, limited in Waltz¡¦s structural realism, Gilpin¡¦s theory of hegemonic stability and neoliberal institutionalism Keohane & Nye devised. Meanwhile, this essay is divided into three parts, from lower level of relation between state and society (relation of structure and agent), hegemony and international regime, to higher level of post-Cold War world order, according to the critique Susan Strange refers to the mainstream international studies. Finally, I will make a normative statement about the School and suggestion related to the development of IR discipline. The purpose of this essay is to introduce a new approach that adopts historical materialism and denies the dichotomy of subject and object. Further, it assumes the importance of social science to build up a research method suitable for itself but different with natural science, and reassesses Enlightment Project. In brief, the context of the New Gramscian School could be derived from the following thinking of three scholars, including neo-Marxist Gramsci ¡¦¡¦cultural hegemony¡¦¡¦ which stresses non-material dimension of hegemony, Poulantzas ¡¥¡¦relative autonomy of state¡¦¡¦ and ¡¥¡¦dialectical structural analysis ¡¦¡¦, highlighting non-determinist characteristic of neoMarxism and putting emphases on the functions of anti-hegemonic social movements rather than seizing state machine by forces directly or radical revolutionary path, and Socialist Polanyi ¡¥¡¦double movement¡¦¡¦, which tries to verify that market itself plays only subordinate role in pre-capitalism period and indicate the fallacy of the self-regulating market itself. With these perspectives above, the School develops a quite different historical approach to interpret international phenomenon and tend to transform the given unjust and unfair world order. In sum, though mainstream IR theories are good at prediction of behaviors in few strong states, there are still a lot of questions unsolved and much space left for IR discipline to have a dialogue with competitive theories, especially the Left had been marginalized for a long time. Accordingly, it¡¦s important and constructive to establish a communicative community in the foreseeable future.

Italian architectural historian and critic, Manfredo Tafuri, with his seminal book Theories and History of Architecture, issued in 1968, started a new era in the architectural discourse. With his eminent theorization of &ldquo / architecture as the critique of ideology,&rdquo / Tafuri had shifted the critique of architecture to a political and Marxist level and this revolutionary understanding had absolute impacts on the institutionalization of the American critical discourse after 1968. This study is a historical criticism of the said intellectual interaction that examines the related theoretical transformations in discourse through specific publications, exhibitions, and symposiums. The 1972 MoMA exhibition, entitled Italy: The New Domestic Landscape (INDL) was a singular &ldquo / case&rdquo / in this examination since the first encounter of American intellectuals with the English translation of Tafuri&rsquo / s text, introducing a historical language, was through its catalog. Assigning the exhibition as a &ldquo / moment of crisis&rdquo / that had critical determining value for the comprehension of the entire sequence, this study attempts to reveal its significance, by analyzing the INDL catalog with a Tafurian methodology. In its entirety, the present study is a historical criticism of a sequence, which, however, does not refer to a linear flow of time. It is the &ldquo / project of crises&rdquo / in that particular sequence, a &ldquo / historical project&rdquo / in Tafurian sense. The project begins with the &ldquo / doubling&rdquo / of the INDL catalog. It recomposes the process into autonomous narratives, and then establishes an analytical relationship between those and Italophile inclinations in related texts, published in the periodical Oppositions between 1974 and 1984.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--National-Louis University. / Bibliography: leaves 106-120.