Univ., Diss.--Jena, 2003.

Texte remanié de : Diss. : Juristische Fakultät : Julius-Maximilians-Universität : Würzburg, 1999. / Bibliogr.: p. 230-249. Index.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Political Science)--University of California. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 426-461).

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the inhabitants of some parts of Europe and the North American colonies were confronted with proto-state institutional arrangements. In certain cases, they responded ambivalently. That ambivalence is at the heart of what I will call the 'limited government tradition'. The tradition's adherents thought that long historical experience, not to mention the events of their own times, provided ample evidence of the corrupting effects of power on those who wield it. Power-holders, left to their own devices, are likely to succumb to the temptations of power by exercising it arbitrarily. Where they are able to do so comprehensively and systematically, the upshot is tyranny. How, then, to ensure that state power is constituted in a manner that is inhospitable to tyranny? The tradition envisaged a range of measures, including a distinctive vision of 'the Rule of Law'. The Rule of Law would both define and enforce certain limits on state power. This study argues that the tradition's hostility to political absolutism is based on moral foundations which apply with equal force to economic power. The tradition ought to examine the modern constitution of economic power to determine whether it is hospitable to arbitrariness and tyranny. If such an examination is undertaken, we learn that modern economic power poses the kind of moral dangers that the tradition's Rule of Law project is designed to combat. However, the tradition assumes that it need not treat economic power as even a potential target of the Rule of Law. I will call that assumption the 'Consensus'. This study's first major aim is to explain the origins and stubbornness of the Consensus. Its second major aim is to persuade readers that the Consensus is mistaken: the tradition must regard economic power as, at least, a potential target of the Rule of Law.

The relationships between the United States and Argentina, traditionally complicated by diplomatic rivalry in the sphere of inter-American relations and by commercial difficulties derived from the non-complementary and often competitive nature of their economies, had reached their lowest level during World War II. However, in the aftermath of the war, a combination of international and domestic developments would lead Argentina to seek a rapprochement with the United States. The breakdown of Argentina's long commercial and financial relationship with Britain combined with its growing dependence on the United States as a source of capital goods, technology and financial capital, provided a powerful incentive for the Southern country to seek an alliance with Washington. On the other hand, the opportunity to exert a closer influence on the policies adopted by Argentina was welcomed by Washington since, although Argentina was a country of only peripheral strategic and economic importance for the United States, the course it followed acquired larger significance for Washington in the context of its impact on the development of inter-American relationships. However, although the circumstances seemed to be favorable for an improved relationship, the path toward rapprochement would be slow, difficult and uneven, as a combination of cultural misunderstandings, persisting stereotypes and structural economic constraints complicated the efforts made by both sides to find satisfactory solutions to the problems that stood between them. This dissertation is the first systematic study of the relationships between Argentina and the United States in the 1950s based on extensive archival research of recently opened documents. It focuses on the strategies adopted by three different Administrations led respectively by Juan D. Peron, the military and Arturo Frondizi to lead Argentina through the transition to a more autonomous and diversified industrial economy and on their efforts to enlist the collaboration of U.S. private and public capital in this process. It analyzes the ways in which the Eisenhower Administration responded to the new opportunities and challenges offered by these developments in Argentina within the context of inter-American relations in the Cold War.

This dissertation project examines the role of identity, the politics of identity contestation and domestic political structures as part of the mechanisms and processes that may be involved in the decisions that states make regarding disengagement from their colonial and territorial possessions. Specifically, it focuses on the following questions: Why do intransigent states back down on previously entrenched territorial policies? And why, even when states decide to disengage from their territories, are some of these processes peaceful while others are scenes of prolonged, bloody and violent struggles? Focusing on Britain and its reaction to Indian calls for independence from 1929-1935, and Indonesia's withdrawal from East Timor in 1999, this project argues that the processes and mechanisms involved in identity construction, maintenance and change can play an important role in how states approach the issue of territorial disengagement. At the same time, it also argues that the structure of a state's domestic political system may also affect the way in which disengagement takes places. Based on its empirical findings, this dissertation also argues that identities are constructed at both the domestic as well as the international levels, and against an Other, and through narratives. Further, identities do not acquire 'substance' once they have been constructed. Rather they are continually constituted by processes, relations and practices as identities are defined, recognized and validated in an actor's interaction with and in relationship to others. Finally, identity does not only influence human actions through enabling or constraining actions but also through the need to perform who we are or who we say we want to be.

This study analyzed the history of American foreign trade policy during the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Four levels of analysis (international, governmental, societal, and individual) provided a framework to explore two historiograhical problems: the decision-making power structure of U.S. trade policy formulation and the aims, motives, and results of this policy. The campaign for the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 served as a basis for testing four models of decision-making: bureaucratic, corporatist, interest group, and inter-branch. The models were tested in the specific issue areas of textiles, lumber, oil, and carpets and glass. These commodities also were used to validate the interpretations of the "hegemony" or the "comparative-advantage" schools of thought regarding the aims and effects of American trade policy. Under the auspices of the Kennedy Round negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, trade relations with the European Economic Community were the overall focus of the debate between the two schools, but bilateral trade with Japan, Asian less-developed countries, Canada, and Venezuela assumed primary importance depending on the commodity. The inter-branch model, and to a lesser extent pressure from interest groups, was found to determine decision-making on trade matters. The assumptions of the comparative-advantage school generally were most accurate in describing the motives and results of U.S. trade policy.

This thesis reconstructs and interprets the evolution of legal culture in the Saxon city of Freiberg in the sixteenth century. It challenges the notion that early modern state institutions were punitive and disciplinary; and instead posits that in Saxony, they were flexible and sought to maintain social harmony. While previous scholarship has favoured a sociological approach, based on the concept of social control, this thesis employs a legal anthropological optic to study the interaction of state institutions and social life holistically. The focus is not just on how state institutions sought to regulate social life, but also on how ordinary people used institutions for their diverse purposes. The goal of this methodological approach, based on Lawrence Friedman’s concept of legal culture, is to assess the relative position and interaction of the people, the judiciary, and the law in early modern Germany. Probing the interactions of the court and the residents of Freiberg reveals that the court was primarily a record-keeper and a mediator. For the former, it logged and transcribed all manner of transactions: peace pacts, loans, and house purchases; and Freibergers readily turned to the court to get a formal record of an obligation. For the latter, the court was rarely a site of punishment, rather it was a place where conflicts were regulated, and bonds forged. At court, Freibergers fostered ties to one another. Neither of these roles, record-keeper or mediator, are ones traditionally ascribed to early modern courts. Only by considering by the culture of a court does either become apparent.

The present study offers an in-depth examination of the institutional framework within which money operated as an economic agent in the Roman empire. Analyses focus on Classical Roman Law as reflected in the writings of Roman jurists from the second and early-third centuries CE. The legal sources are augmented by documentary materials, which give independent, albeit sporadic, evidence for actual practice. The thesis follows current trends in economic history to adopt approaches advanced by New Institutional Economics (NIE), while generally accepting Keynesian claims for the endogenous nature of money. Its innovative contribution is in suggesting a complexity-oriented approach to modelling the behaviour of money in the Roman empire; seeing money as a complex economic phenomenon, i.e. as a diverse and manifold apparatus which allows for new patterns of activity to be created by individuals, who self-adjust their use of it to the continuously evolving system in which they operate. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first is introductory. The second concerns the legal institutional framework for economic interaction; with discussions generally organised according to Roman legal categorisation, and considers developments in the role allocated to money in legal definitions for exchange transaction. The third part examines two study-cases of money-related institutions, namely, the instrument of interest, and interest-bearing deposits, demonstrating how money stimulated the interconnected dynamics within and between legal traditions operating under Roman regime. The fourth and last part is dedicated to a more general analysis of the complex nature of Roman money, attempting to model the historical example of Roman money with the help of complexity-oriented visualisations.

Doc. dr. J.Machovenko habilitacijos procedūrai pateiktoje mokslo darbų apžvalgoje „XIII-XX a. Lietuvos teisinės sistemos istorija“ apibendrinami 1999-2009 m. VU Teisės fakultete atliktų tyrimų rezultatai, paskelbti 2 mokslo monografijose ir 20 mokslo straipsnių. Šių tyrimų metodologinis pagrindas yra sociologinė teisės samprata, leidžianti į teisę žvelgti ne tik kaip į pozityviosios teisės normų visumą, bet ir kaip į kur kas platesnį socialinį reiškinį - teisinę visuomenės sistemą. Autorius laiko teisinę sistemą autonomine visuomenės, kaip savavaldės sistemos, subsistema, gebančia savarankiškai nustatyti savo vidinę raidą, kad galėtų tinkamai atlikti jai aukštesnės sistemos priskirtas funkcijas. Pagrindinėmis funkcinėmis teisinės sistemos subsistemomis autorius laiko teisėkūros (institucijų ir procedūrų, teisės normų ir jų šaltinių), jurisdikcijos (teisės taikymo) ir jurisprudencijos (teisės pažinimo bei mokymo) subsistemą. Apžvelgiami darbai apima visų trijų Lietuvos teisinės sistemos subsistemų problematiką. Remdamasis gausiais istorijos šaltiniais, Lietuvoje ir užsienyje paskelbtais mokslo darbais, autorius kompleksiškai nagrinėja nesulaukusius atidesnio teisės istorikų dėmesio klausimus. Lietuvos teisinės sistemos elementai tiriami Vakarų teisės tradicijos, kurioje susiformavo ir plėtojasi Lietuvos teisinė sistema, istorijos kontekstu. Autorius supranta teisės istoriją kaip tam tikriems dėsningumams pavaldų kryptingą įprasmintą teisės „įkopimą“ į kokybiškai vis aukštesnį... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In the present work the author reviews the two scientific monographs and twenty scientific articles in which the history of the Lithuanian legal system is investigated. The author aspires to elucidate how did the main subsystems of the Lithuanian legal system – legislation, jurisdiction and jurisprudence – appeared and developed up to the end of the 20th century in the context of evolution of the Western legal tradition. The basic methods of research used in the works are historical, comparative and teleological. The main theses of the reviewed scientific monographs and articles are these: The law of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) was created by the Government on the basis of the national Lithuanian law and some elements of the custom Slav law. Substitution of the custom Slav law for the Lithuanian public and private law took place in those provinces in the 14th-16th centuries. The custom Slav law hampered forming of the system of law of the GDL. It was created finally in the middle of the 16th century. The law of the GDL was a medieval estate law. Estate is a legal phenomenon and law determines signs and features of any estate. Main sign of any estate is rights leaved to him by law and protected by state. Estate system, that is an organization of society into classes rigidly divided for political purposes and defined primarily by law, is based on a legal inequality of estates. Any estate is a stable order closed to outsiders. In order to belong to estate any person must... [to full text]