The world faces many complex and difficult problems at the global level – problems that are increasingly recognised as requiring political as much as technical solutions. While such issues are often taken to concern, in broad terms, global governance, more specifically, the political aspects of such governance are fundamentally linked to interactions between the United Nations system and the power exercised by the United States of America (US). One important and distinctive arena within which these interactions can be viewed is the international food aid regime, and its central organisation, the World Food Programme (WFP) - an area lacking in concerted political science study in recent years. This thesis is concerned with the role of the US in shaping the legitimacy of the WFP within the institutional context of the international food aid regime. Legitimacy is defined as deriving from the three elements of inclusion, accountability and effectiveness. The WFP and international regime are, it is argued, well respected, relatively effective, and enjoy high levels of legitimacy. At a micro level there are many specific historical and localised factors resulting in this legitimacy; at the macro level many of these factors can be linked to the interaction of norms and interests between the US and the regime. / In particular, the regime’s development and success has been closely related to both a congruence between the US domestic feed-the-hungry norm and the regime’s international feed-the-hungry norm, and a process of divergence between those norms. It is this normative interplay that has enabled US power to be deployed and constrained in a manner resulting in high levels of legitimacy for the WFP. While in many respects this has limited WFP’s capacity to do more with the problem of global hunger than merely ameliorate it, the nature of the problem is much bigger than the capacities of any single operational agency of the United Nations.

The purpose of this study is to explain how Australia has bargained for improved outcomes in its trade with the United States over the 1980s and into the early 1990s. This explanation is sought by means of an analysis of the forces which have shaped Australia's trade policy-making towards the U.S. in the five trading sectors of wheat, sugar, beef, steel and international air passenger transport. The study adopts a theoretical framework which postulates that state actors and institutions are principally responsible for trade policy-making and the concomitant bargaining strategies adopted to improve trade outcomes. However, a state-centred approach needs to be qualified by state actors' accomodation of societal-actor demands for policy action. While exogenous to this domestic bargaining process, influences emanating from the international political economy must also be taken into account. The relationship within and between state and societal actors, influenced as they are by international institutions and ideas, are critical to understanding the bargaining approaches made by one state towards another. It is argued that sectoral trading outcomes between Australia and the U.S. can be understood by reference to a bilateral bargaining process within each trading sector. Within each such bargaining process, Australia has, within broad bilateral and multilateral approaches, devised strategies by which it could mobilize sectorally-specific resources to seek to exploit opportunities and minimise problems so as to improve its trading outcomes. The nature of these sectoral strategies has been influenced by first, the nature of the U.S. policy and policy-making process; second, the Australian domestic bargaining process between state and societal actors; and third, and to a lesser extent, prevailing ideas and the perceptions of the negotiating parties.

The scope of this thesis falls under the title, “Woodrow Wilson, World War I and the Rise of Poland”. The author’s intention in selecting this topic is to examine the national and political re-emergence of Poland in the early twentieth century from a predominantly American perspective, as no other Western nation had played as great a hand in this “rebirth”. Covering the better part of a decade and more that begins by tracing Woodrow Wilson’s ascension to the United States presidency, the examination centres upon the extent of and reasoning behind this Wilson-led influence as wielded through the channels of foreign diplomacy with and regarding Poland. Underlining America’s first substantial foray into internal European diplomatic affairs, the study analyses, in turn, American involvement and interest in the Poles’ burgeoning drive towards self-determination and national sovereignty leading into and throughout the First World War; Poland’s weighty part in the American government’s documented preparations for peace in Europe; and Wilson’s significant personal response to the ultimately successful course of the Polish independence movement, among other European developments leading up to the war’s close. Research conducted in this exercise comprises an analysis of primarily American foreign diplomatic and domestic political sources (including considerable emphasis upon the personal papers and documents of Woodrow Wilson himself), as well as of similar Polish sources where they pertain to American interest. Furthermore, scrutiny of the diplomatic records of other nations necessarily involved in this arena of “Great Power” politics, such as Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Western Powers, adds to the inspection. The author believes that such investigation exposes the unlikely dimensions of America’s, and especially Wilson’s, critical involvement within this particular East European historical setting. In this light, Wilson’s triumphant crusading on behalf of the rights of small nations – and equally his ensuing reversal of fortunes over the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations Charter – can be seen to be embodied within the momentous revival of Poland’s independence and the subsequently rocky path of the “new” nation’s fledgling statehood.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Fielding Institute, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-249).

DC, Georgetown Univ., Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Diss.--Washington, 2004. / Kopie, ersch. im Verl. UMI, Ann Arbor, Mich.

<p>The aim of this paper is to investigate if a revaluation of the Chinese renminbi is in China’s interest and whether or not a renminbi revaluation can contribute to correct the US current account deficit. For that purpose, advantages and disadvantages of a revaluation for China are discussed. Furthermore, the fundamental causes of the US current account deficit are analysed to evaluate to what extent a renminbi revaluation can correct this imbalance. The discussion is based on previous research in this area. The main result is that a revaluation of the Chinese renminbi is primarily beneficial for China. Additionally it is found that the fundamental causes of the US current account deficit are domestic macroeconomic conditions and not China’s exchange rate policy. Nevertheless, a renminbi revaluation can help to support to correct the imbalance situation. As evidence is found that a revaluation is beneficial for China, it is further analysed how the revaluation should be practically obtained. The basic result is that the renminbi revaluation should be initiated by more exchange rate flexibility rather than by a one-step appreciation.</p>

This qualitative text analysis has studied medias portrayal of Taimour Abdulwahab, Anders Behring Breivik and their respective terrorist attacks. The purpose of the essay was to study the newspapers portrayal of the terrorists, with one terrorist being part of an us group and the other one part of a them group. It also aspires to uncover whether the medias portrayal of the terrorists reproduce mechanisms which help sustain the gap between us and them. To answer the essays research questions we have used the media theory about agenda setting and the sociologists Norbert Elias’ and John L. Scotsons theory about established and outsiders. The analysis of news articles the first two days after the terrorist attacks in Swedish newspapers Expressen and Aftonbladet showed a difference in the portrayal of the established Breivik, whos persona and actions were explained on an individual level, whereas the outsider Abdulwahab was connected to groups and his acts explained on a more structural level. The results have also shown how deeply connected terrorism and Islam are, which especially came through in the articles about Breivik, a Christian ethnic Norwegian man. / Denna kvalitativa textanalysstudie har undersökt medias framställning av Taimour Abdulwahab, Anders Behring Breivik och deras respektive terrordåd. Syftet var att undersöka tidningars framställning av terrorister, där ena terroristen tillhör en vi-grupp och den andra en dem-grupp. Den avser även att se om media reproducerar mekanismer som upprätthåller klyftan mellan vi och dem i sin rapportering av terrordåden. För att svara på forskningsfrågorna har vi tagit hjälp av den medievetenskapliga teorin om dagordningen och dess byggstenar samt sociologerna Norbert Elias och John L. Scotsons teori om etablerade och outsiders. Analysen av artiklar från de två första dagarna efter dåden i Expressen och Aftonbladet visade en skillnad i framställningen hos den etablerade Breivik, som framställdes på ett individuellt plan, medan outsidern Abdulwahab kopplades ihop med grupper och förklarades av strukturella skäl. Resultaten har även visat att terrorism är starkt ihopkopplat med religionen islam, även i Breiviks fall, som inte är muslim.

Immigration is one of the effects, one of the symptoms of the ill-functioning and outdated machine that is the elite. Immigration and asylum-seeking have been frequent topics in public debates for years. The number of refugees making their way from war-torn regions of the world to Sweden makes the citizen versus asylum-seeker dichotomy highly relevant for social psychology research about discursively constituted identities. That is to say: how social-categorizations, emotions and attitudes are created in text and talk. Today, public opinion is largely produced online, this makes it possible to explore the motivations, strategies and goals of “the nonracist racist” on Facebook. This study utilizes a dual-edged approach in that coding is done both from an inductive- and a deductive direction. It adheres to a discursive psychology approach and follows Potter and Edward’s (2001) situated, action-oriented and constructed features of discourse. These theoretical features inform the deductive coding and are contextualized using Sakki and Pettersson’s (2016) three representation of otherness with subsequent six discourses produced by the populist radical right. Findings indicate that cultural comparison constructing cultural incompatibility is the main rhetorical resource for constructing the citizen versus asylum-seeker dichotomy. However, this dichotomy is not the most dominant “us and them” construction by the “nonracist racist”. “The elite versus the people” is the most common “us and them” construction. It carries significant weight that the seemingly unfiltered expressions of hatred on anti-immigration pages on Facebook are more concerned with what “we” are doing wrong rather than what is wrong with any “deviant others”. It is more about an internal clash of moral compasses than it is about a supposed clash of civilizations. Along with the occasioned feature of discourse, this partly explains why anti-immigration advocates for example position themselves as victims or defenders.

abstract: Environmental change and natural hazards represent a challenge for sustainable development. By disrupting livelihoods and causing billions of dollars in damages, disasters can undo many decades of development. Development, on the other hand, can actually increase vulnerability to disasters by depleting environmental resources and marginalizing the poorest. Big disasters and big cities get the most attention from the media and academia. The vulnerabilities and capabilities of small cities have not been explored adequately in academic research, and while some cities in developed countries have begun to initiate mitigation and adaptation responses to environmental change, most cities in developing countries have not. In this thesis I explore the vulnerability to flooding of the US-Mexico border by using the cities of Nogales, Arizona, USA and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico as a case study. I ask the following questions: What is the spatial distribution of vulnerability, and what is the role of the border in increasing or decreasing vulnerability? What kind of coordination should occur among local institutions to address flooding in the cities? I use a Geographic Information System to analyze the spatial distribution of flood events and the socio-economic characteristics of both cities. The result is an index that estimates flood vulnerability using a set of indicators that are comparable between cities on both sides of the border. I interviewed planners and local government officials to validate the vulnerability model and to assess collaboration efforts between the cities. This research contributes to our understanding of vulnerability and sustainability in two ways: (1) it provides a framework for assessing and comparing vulnerabilities at the city level between nations, overcoming issues of data incompatibility, and (2) it highlights the institutional arrangements of border cities and how they affect vulnerability. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Sustainability 2010

abstract: ABSTRACT The early twentieth century saw changing attitudes in gender roles and the advancement of the "New Woman." Despite the decline in the availability of homesteading land in the US West, homesteading still offered a means for women to achieve or enact newfound independence, and the letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Elizabeth Corey, and Cecilia Hennel Hendricks offer a varied view of the female homesteading experience. This dissertation focuses upon the functionality of epistolary discourse from early twentieth century homesteading women within a literary and historical framework in order to establish the significance of letters as literary texts and examine the methodology involved in creating epistolary identities. Chapter one provides background on the history of the letter in America. It also as introduces a theoretical framework regarding life writing, feminism, and epistolary discourse that inform this study, by scholars such as Phillipe LeJeune, Leigh Gilmore, Janet Altman, Julie Watson, and Sidonie Smith. Chapter two delves into the published letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart and the way in which her writing, when situated within a US western literary framework, serves as a reaction to the masculine western hero. Chapter three considers the epistolary relationships evident in the letters of Elizabeth Corey and the construction of gender identity within epistolarity. Chapter four focuses upon Cecilia Hennel Hendricks and the historical and feminist context of her letters, with a particular emphasis upon the "love letter." The conclusion examines the progression of the letter in the twentieth century and forms of online discourse that can be directly linked to its evolution. Far from being simply a form of communication, these letters reveal the history of a time, a place, a people, function as narrative literary texts, and aid in developing identities. For readers and scholars they tell offer a glimpse into life for women in the early twentieth century and highlight the significance of letters as a literary form. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2010