Taiwan's complex informal diplomatic practices and the forces behind them have brought both successes and failures in Taiwan's relations with former Yugoslavia and its successor states. In order to better comprehend and adequately explain the foreign policy outputs, the study has systematically examined external and internal influences that have shaped Taipei's foreign policy by employing four basic levels of analysis ¡V the system, the state, the societal and the individual level. The study has argued that while both, internal and external factors have shaped Taiwan's relations, the China factor in particular has posed the major source of external systemic influence that has affected Taiwan's diplomatic endeavors in the post-Yugoslav region. To circumvent the China-imposed international isolation and the system that refuses to recognize its legitimacy, Taiwan has utilized informal diplomacy to advance its national interests. Although systemic level may best explain Taiwan's diplomatic behavior, governmental, societal and individual levels also present relevant dimensions of explanation. Taiwan's diplomatic offensive and the pattern of its approaches towards the former Yugoslav region in general, have caught public attention upon Taiwan's diplomatic breakthrough with Macedonia in January 1999. The study has revealed that among the multi-track diplomatic strategies it employed in its foreign policy, Taipei mainly resorted to economic diplomacy, primarily in the form of trade as well as in the form of economic aid in order to establish closer ¡V preferably diplomatic or, at least, semi-official ¡¥substantive¡¦ ¡V relations with the post-Yugoslav nations. Despite its short triumph with Macedonia, Taiwanese diplomacy failed to accomplish its objectives in post-Yugoslav states. Nevertheless, saying that does not imply that it has been unsuccessful.

<p>The Serbs are a national group which has been disliked by the Croats for hundreds of years. Even before Croatia became a part of Yugoslavia, the country wanted its independence. However, before and after the break up of Yugoslavia, there was a strong nationalism in the country which led to hatred towards the Serbs and the Serb minorities in Croatia. Studies have shown that minorities often are disfavoured by the majority decisions. This leads to a disadvantageous position for the minorities in the relation to the majority. The problem is how a state should compensate these groups for their disadvantageous position to be able to ensure justice and equality for all citizens within the country.</p><p>The aim of this thesis is to compare Croatia’s formal national minority rights with the actual national minority rights of the Serbs and to see whether they coincide with each other. The research questions are:</p><p>• What formal minority rights do Croatian Serbs have in Croatia?</p><p>• What minority rights do Croatian Serbs have in reality?</p><p>The method used in this study is the qualitative text analysis.</p><p>The conclusion of this thesis is that Croatia has a positive attitude towards minority rights and the Serb minority, as Croatia has allocated group-differentiated rights to its national minorities. The Croatian view upon national minority rights coincides to a large extent with Will Kymlicka´s theory. Furthermore, the formal rights and the virtual rights regarding education, language, culture and proportional representation coincides to a great extent if not precisely.</p>

<p>Croatia became an independent country 1991 and has since then strived to reach a democracy level, which can lead to membership of the European Union. The purpose of this essay is on the basis of consolidate democratic perspective to illustrate Croatia’s democratic development.</p><p>In order to fulfil the aim, I have applied a qualitative text analysis technique. Through analysis of books and documents, data was collected to accommodate a valid result. I have used consolidated democracy, with its five areas (political, civil, economic, legal and bureaucratic), as my theoretical framework to the data, to provide answers and develop an analysis.</p><p>The conclusions show that the consolidate democracy in Croatia has developed a lot since the independence, and Croatia is on its good way to turn into a democratic state like other West-European countries. Croatia has developed and is still developing their political, civil, economic, legal and bureaucratic areas. A good sign of their democratic development is that Croatia received status as a candidate country in June 2005 for European Union, which shows that Croatia is on the way to complete its transition to consolidated democracy.</p>

The thesis investigates the efficiency of depository institutions in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Turkey between 2003 and 2006. Four of these countries switched from a planned to a market economy in the early 1980ies. These are contrasted with Austria. High coverage ratios are ensured by using data published by the relevant regulatory authorities. Data envelopment analysis yields higher efficiency scores in all but one country when deposits are treated as output. This implies that banks see deposits as products they offer to their customers and which they do not attempt to minimize. While in some countries improvements in efficiency can be detected against an inter-temporal single-country efficiency frontier, no overall efficiency improvement against a common regional frontier can be identified. Results of a Malmquist Index analysis are also inconclusive for the region as a whole, although technological improvement can be shown for Austria between 2004 and 2005. When data is grouped by country, Austria and Croatia emerge as most and Serbia and Bulgaria as least efficient markets. An interesting pattern emerges when DMUs are grouped by category (savings, cooperative and universal banks) and country. It can then be seen that savings and cooperative banks show comparably low efficiency in Austria but comparably high scores in Serbia and Croatia. For universal banks, this pattern is reversed. (author's abstract)

The objective of this thesis is to identify alternative building systems for low rise housing, that can be applied to the market of countries of the former Yugoslavia. Six building systems, developed and produced in Canada, have been selected for this purpose. In order to compare them to existing system, the set of criteria for evaluation is developed, based on three major aspects: the technical aspect deals with codes and regulations, implementation, durability and other physical characteristics of building systems; the economic aspect compares costs; and the psychological aspect investigates the level of acceptance from both the builders' and homeowners' point of view. / The results of this research prove the complexity of the issue of technology transfer. Even though all evaluated building systems showed technical and, particularly economical improvements over the existing masonry, it is the issue of cultural acceptance that is the determining factor in the success of a new product. That is the main reason why building systems based on concrete would more likely be accepted over "light" frame systems. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This thesis examines the development of the Yugoslav Communists' approach towards the Catholic Church during the period of their takeover and consolidation of power from the outbreak of war in April 1941 until late 1946. In recent years, a comprehensive reappraisal of the Communist takeover has been going on in the countries of former Yugoslavia, and this work draws on this new scholarship, as well as on hitherto unused archival material. It examines the development of the Communists' popular front line during the war, according to which the Communist-dominated Partisan movement sought to appeal to non-communists, including Catholics, to join them in ousting the occupier. As such, this policy meant downplaying the Communists' revolutionary programme, which they never actually gave up. The thesis examines in detail the application of the popular front policy among the Catholic Croats of Croatia and Bosnia, and among the Slovenes. It describes how the Communists avoided actions or pronouncements that would have offended the Church, attempted to have cordial relations with the Church hierarchy and encouraged the active participation of Catholic clergy and prominent lay people in the movement. The prime purpose of this was to reassure the Catholic population that they had nothing to fear from a Communist takeover. However, the hostility between the two sides was not overcome, as revealed in the violence of the Communists towards many of the clergy during the period immediately before and after their takeover. Following this, the Communists' implementation of their revolutionary programme brought them into direct conflict with the interests of the Church, especially in their curtailing of the role of the Church in education and in their confiscation of Church property. Relations quickly degenerated into open confrontation, as the Church could not accept the limited role in society which the Communists were prepared to grant it.

Thesis (doctoral)--Lund University, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-165) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Lund University, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-165) and index.

The relationship between decoration, architectural form, and function is investigated in depth in those early chapels of Italy and Istria which retain significant amounts of their decorative programmes. These include the Archbishops' chapel and the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, S. Vittore in Ciel d'Oro, Milan, the St. Matrona chapel at S. Prisco near S. Maria di Capua Vetere, Campania, and the chapels at the Lateran Baptistery, Rome. In addition, the chapels are set into a broader context through a survey of the many chapels which survive in less good condition, or are known only from archaeological and literary sources. The decorative programme of each chapel is analysed for iconographic content. Themes reflect not only the basic vocabulary of the earliest Christian art, but more precisely, the hopes and aspirations of the chapel's builder. The vast majority of the surviving chapels were built as memorial or funerary chapels in connection with the cult of the dead, and expressed the soul's need for assistance in the attainment of heaven. The funerary cult was intimately connected with that of the martyrs, whose bodies and relics also rested in the chapels, and whose power in favour of those who were interred beside them was invoked in art in the chapels' decorative programmes. Literary evidence confirmed that chapels had also existed in the dwellings of the lay aristocracy, though none had survived. On the other hand, clergy-house oratories were represented not only by the chapel of the Archbishops of Ravenna, but by the shrines of the two saints John at the Lateran Baptistery, Rome, which were identified as papal oratories adjacent to the home of the early popes at the Lateran Palace. The total loss of the domestic chapels of the laiety slanted the conclusions of the study not only towards clergy house oratories, but towards funerary and memorial structures, of which a greater number survived. It was found that the latter illustrate the chronological sequence: martyr's memoria, funerary chapel, martyrium. Some examples served more than one of these functions in turn, and possibly the full sequence. Analysis of the iconographic programmes showed that themes and functions were closely interrelated. Even so, there were more similarities than differences in the iconographic programmes of chapels which clearly served different functions. Most importantly, three-dimensional decorative schemes were common to all types of chapel. In these compositions, the chapel's interior space represented a microcosm of the universe. These schemes were judged to be ancestral to the decorative schemes typical of centrally-planned churches in the Middle Byzantine period. Annexed chapels formed the main subject of the study, and all those mentioned so far are of this type. However, the origin of chapels within the perimeters of church buildings, which occurred late in the period of study, is briefly discussed in the final chapter, where oratories, sacristies, and chapels inside auxiliary buildings are distinguished from one another, and from the annexed chapels which had previously been standard. / Graduate

Esta pesquisa estuda a formação e a realização de atividades linguísticas e culturais em Grupos Folclóricos de comunidades rurais de origem ucraniana na Croácia e no Brasil, com vistas a compreender a constituição de políticas linguísticas em/para comunidades minoritárias. A escolha dessas comunidades se deu porque ambas têm em comum um mesmo momento de formação, no século XIX, organização interna e tensão com o poder institucional. A partir disso formulamos a nossa hipótese inicial: a comunidade ucraniana não só segue as políticas oficiais, mas também estabelece, para além dessas políticas, uma política específica e mais autônoma em seu interior, concretizada através de diversas ações educativas, o que nos mostra que a política linguística pode acontecer no nível micro, fora do âmbito estreitamente institucional. Para tal fim, analisa como os membros de uma comunidade minoritária constituem sua política linguística, nos momentos educativos que oscilam entre o (não)formal, bem como o resultado da tensão entre a identidade assumida pela Comunidade, a identidade presumida pelo Estado e a intermediada pela Universidade. O conjunto de dados analisado é formado por documentos, entrevistas e observações, das comunidades ucranianas nos municípios de Irati (grupo Ivan Kupalo), Prudentópolis (grupo Vesselka) e Mallet (grupo Spomen), no Brasil, e Lipovljani (grupo Karpati), umee (grupo Andrij Pelih) e Kania (grupo Taras evenko), na Croácia. Também foram coletados documentos e textos produzidos pelo Estado/Universidade. Para a coleta dos dados, a pesquisa valeu-se de metodologia etnográfica, utilizada para organizar e interpretar os depoimentos, os textos e as observações, junto com a abordagem analítica do discurso presente neles. Já o aparato analítico-interpretativo da pesquisa consiste no entrosamento das áreas da Educação (Ensino formal e não-formal), dos Estudos linguísticos (Análise do Discurso) e folclóricos (políticos, econômicos e estéticos) e das Políticas Linguísticas (nacionais/locais). Alguns dos resultados que obtivemos dizem respeito às práticas educativas realizadas nessas comunidades que são múltiplas e concomitantes e à discussão acerca da ampliação da interligação das quatro áreas mencionadas, abrindo, assim, espaço para novas interpretações da possibilidade de novas estratégias e ações educativas na prática e na teoria. / This research studies the formation and the implementation of linguistic and cultural activities in folklore groups among rural communities of Ukrainian origin in Croatia and Brazil, in order to understand the constitution of linguistic policies in/ for minority communities. These communitieswere selected because both were formed in the nineteenth century, with the same internal organization and tension with institutional power. From this we formulate our initial hypothesis: the Ukrainian community not only follows the official policies, but also establishes, in addition to these policies, a specific and more autonomous policy in its interior, materialized through several educational actions, which shows us that language policy can occur on the micro level, outside the narrow institutional framework. To this end, the thesis analyzes how the members of a minority community constitute their linguistic policy, in the educational moments that oscillate between the (non)formal, as well as the result of the tension between the identity assumed by the Community, the identity presumed by the State and intermediated by the University. The data consists of documents, interviews and observations from the Ukrainian communities in the municipalities of Irati (Ivan Kupalo group), Prudentópolis (Vesselka group) and Mallet (Spomen group) in Brazil, and Lipovljani (Karpati group), umee (Andrij Pelih group) and Kania (Taras evenko group) in Croatia. Documents and texts produced by the State/University were also collected. For the data collection, the research was based on ethnographic methodology, used to organize and interpret the statements, texts and observations, along with the analytical approach to their discourse. On the other hand, the analytical-interpretive apparatus of the research consists of the integration of the areas of Education (formal and non-formal education), Linguistic Studies (Discourse Analysis) and folklore (political, economic and aesthetic). Some of the results we obtained relate to the educational practices that offer information according to topic and the discussion about the extension of the interconnection of the four mentioned areas that open space for new interpretations.