After nearly 60 years of frozen diplomatic relations between USA and Cuba President Obama decided it was time for a change. The leading words of his campaign has since the beginning of his first election period in 2009 been to “Remake America”. As a result of his new approach to foreign policymaking and international relations President Obama and Raúl Castro announced in December 2014 that they wished to normalize the diplomatic relationship between the two states. March 2016 therefor marks an historical event when Obama travelled to Cuba to formally shake hands with Raúl Castro, and extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people. He was the first American president to visit Cuba since Kennedy confirmed the embargo in the beginning of the 1960s. This essay will look into the historical aspects of the path dependent Cuban policy that nine American Presidents has chosen to pursue since the beginning of the 1960s, leading up to 2009. A policy that has not been able to live up to what it was set out to do. This essay will use three different theories to try and make sense of why history is changing, and how we should understand these changes. Realism and liberalism are used to deal with the historical aspects regarding this relationship. Although USA is built on liberal values and they have taken on the role as a democratic leader in the world, many political decisions and actions points to a more realistic approach to international relations mostly driven by suspicion against other non-democratic states. The theory of path dependency is employed to try and break down events as we approach the historical event of the meeting between President Obama and Raúl Castro during Obamas visit to Cuba in March 2016. With the help of path dependent tools such as increasing returns and critical junctures, this essay concludes that we have in fact reached a critical juncture regarding the American Cuban policy.

This essay examines how rhetoric and migration policy have changed from before and after Brexit. The study is limited to the years 2012-2022. I will analyze whether there is a particular connection between rhetoric and migration policy within the named period. The material that will be analyzed will be the statements concerning migration policy. This will mainly be based on the statements of top politicians. The theories that will be consumed on my collected material are global neo-institutionalism and the critical juncture theory. The results indicate that Brexit entailed major institutional changes in migration policy. The result also indicated that Brexit meant that the Conservative Party was moved to pursue a more restrictive and restrained migration policy. The conclusion is summarized by the fact that Brexit entailed major institutional changes. However, these have not meant reduced migration to Great Britain, which was the aim of the changed migration policy.

This study looks at the development in policy towards homosexuals in Sweden from criminalization to constitutional protection. A study on the ideational development in parliament has yet to be conducted. By studying the frames expressed in the official documents between 1933 and 2010 the study analyses ideas in terms of problems and solutions to describe how change occurred. The result is that Swedish policy towards homosexuals has been determined by two frames of understanding: a sexual frame  and an emotional frame. The policy process of the frames developed similarly in terms of institutionalization. Initially both frames saw homosexuals as dangerous which resulted in a different legal status. The frames gradually harmonized with a new scientific understanding that reinterpreted homosexuality as harmless and the different legal status problematic.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:13:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marlise Borges de Lima.pdf: 102098121 bytes, checksum: bba71c9cfe0001c5355d3fc571f5d968 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-11-11 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This thesis aims mainly to bring major contributions to the study of Brazilian and Amazon culture through the processes of creation and mediation of art and communication, which are in the cultural-artistic work of Walter Freitas, who is a writer, playwright, musician and composer of Pará. It seeks to understand the extent of his art: how much it can do to resonate amazonidade and the fundamental knowledge of this culture and also activate a certain collective memory, since the translation of the Amazon culture present in the artistic production of this author is full of facts that relate to a whole society. Freitas performs thus a work of art, culture and communication that reaches universal dimensions. In music, theater or literature, he builds and rebuilds poetics that fulfill their role as an alternative way. In the language of sound he creates a new musical aesthetic as inserts rhythms, irregular beats, complex harmonic and melodic structures and masterfully vocalizes the indigenous and African subdialects. In scenic language he writes in verse and always tries to work the issue of theater from an experimental perspective. He approaches social, political and cultural themes (in poetic form), showing always a very rich reflection material about the traditions in the Amazon. The themes of migration of riparian peoples, forest preservation and other references that bring up issues related to the universal human condition, even from elements of this private culture are also present. In literature, Freitas appropriates 'physically' and enhances the popular language. He brings back expressions into disuse, adds new terms to the Indian and African dialects (existing) and reaches the refinement of inaugurating a new language when creating graphic signs (inverted accents, apostrophes at the beginning, middle and end of words) to mean peculiarities of pronunciations, sonorities, suppression of letters and phonemes. Thus, his verb-visual-sound artworks from the first to the last syllable, note and to scene constitute sequences split into kaleidoscope, which through the tiles finally materialize the structure of a unit . To approach the concepts of cultural translation and mediation in art/communication this thesis is based on the Semiotics of Culture, through the semioticists Yuri Lotman, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Paul Zumthor among others. In the territories of communication and culture it is based on the theories of Jesus Martin Barbero, Serge Gruzinski, Boaventura de Souza Santos and other authors who think of Brazil and Latin America as places of diverse elements multi-junctures and concerning about notions of racial mixing, popular culture, orality and memory on the studies of Amalio Pinheiro and Jerusa Pires Ferreira / Esta tese tem como objetivo principal trazer contribuições aos estudos de cultura brasileira e amazônica, através dos processos de criação e mediação em arte e comunicação, que estão no trabalho artístico-cultural de Walter Freitas, escritor, dramaturgo, músico e compositor paraense. Procura-se compreender a dimensão de sua arte: o quanto ela pode fazer ressoar a amazonidade e o conhecimento fundamental desta cultura e ainda ativar uma certa memória coletiva, uma vez que a tradução da cultura amazônica presente na produção artística deste autor é repleta de fatos que dizem respeito a todo um conjunto social. Freitas realiza, portanto, um trabalho de arte, cultura e comunicação, que ganha dimensões universais. Na música, no teatro ou na literatura, constrói e reconstrói poéticas que cumprem o seu papel de forma alternativa. Na linguagem sonora cria uma nova estética musical, quando insere ritmos, compassos irregulares, estruturas harmônicas e melódicas complexas e sonoriza, com maestria, os subdialetos indígenas e africanos. Na linguagem cênica escreve em versos e procura sempre trabalhar a questão do teatro a partir de uma perspectiva experimental. Aborda temas sociais, políticos e culturais (de forma poética), apresentando sempre um material muito rico de reflexão a respeito das tradições na Amazônia. Comparecem os temas da migração dos povos ribeirinhos, da preservação da floresta e outras referências, que trazem à tona questões universais inerentes à condição humana, mesmo partindo de elementos desta cultura, em particular. Na literatura, Freitas apropria-se 'fisicamente' da linguagem popular e a potencializa. Traz de volta expressões em desuso, acrescenta novos termos aos dialetos indígenas e africanos (já existentes) e chega ao requinte de inaugurar uma linguagem nova, ao criar sinais gráficos (acentos invertidos, apóstrofes no início, meio e final das palavras) para significar peculiaridades de pronúncias, sonoridades, supressão de letras e fonemas. Deste modo, suas obras de arte verbo-visual-sonoras, da primeira à última sílaba, da primeira à ultima nota e à ultima cena, se constituem em sequências desdobradas em caleidoscópio, que, passando pelos mosaicos, finalmente concretizam a estrutura de uma unidade. Para abordar os conceitos de tradução cultural e mediação em arte/comunicação, a pesquisa fundamenta-se na Semiótica da Cultura, através dos semioticistas Iuri Lotman, Mikhail Bakhtin, Paul Zumthor, entre outros. Nos territórios da comunicação e da cultura, as teorias de Jesus Martin Barbero, Serge Gruzinski e Boaventura de Souza Santos e outros autores, que pensam o Brasil e a América Latina como lugares de 'multiconfluências' de elementos diversos. E sobre noções de mestiçagem, cultura popular, oralidade e memória, foram utilizados os estudos de Amálio Pinheiro e Jerusa Pires Ferreira

<p>This study focuses upon the new societal objects that are termed public private</p><p>partnerships where the public sector forms strategic alliances with the private sector</p><p>and the civil society to manage the wicked issues of today. An exampel of such</p><p>cooperation is Vänerhamn AB where the municipalities around the lake of Vänern</p><p>and the private shipping companies got togheter to handle an economic crisis of the</p><p>shipping buisiness. The partnership Vänerhamn has developed from a problematic</p><p>activity to a healthy company and the aim of this thesis is to illuminate this</p><p>development through an historical institutional approach, focusing critical juncture</p><p>to discover if the governance theory can be used to understand the partnerships</p><p>positive process.</p><p> </p><p>This will be done through research questions about the organisation of the</p><p>partnership, about the members interests with the partnership and about eventually</p><p>coordination problems in the partnership. The questions derive from dimensions in</p><p>governance theory, central for the activity of partnerships. Interviews with central</p><p>informants where held and it was complemented through a document analyses in</p><p>order to search for indications of the dimensions and that is the methodological</p><p>approach of the study.</p><p> </p><p>The conclusion of this thesis is that the governance theory can be used to</p><p>understand Vänerhamns postive development since the members interest with the</p><p>partnership to a begining was not at all conformed and that led to obvious</p><p>coordination problems. With more conformed interests the coordination problems</p><p>were almost absent and the partnership made success. In this case the organisation</p><p>of the partnership did not matter as it was a registered company during the whole</p><p>time. The central sapiency of the thesis is that the public sector has to learn more</p><p>about the private sector and vice versa.</p>

<p>This study deals with Swedish nuclear-energy politics from 1980 to 2006. The purpose is to trace and to explain change and stability in three political parties’ rhetoric concerning the phase-out of Swedish nuclear-energy and the Swedish government’s nuclear politics. Two hypotheses based on path dependency theory are tested to analyze if rhetoric and politics are developing in separate directions. The first hypothesis is based on the idea that earlier promises from the political parties affect what promises they can make later on. The second hypothesis is based on the idea that early investments in Swedish nuclear energy will affect what investments can be made at a later stage. The study shows that there are differences between the political parties’ promises and the government’s politics in the Swedish nuclear-energy debate. The two tested hypotheses seem to be possible explanations to why differences between party rhetoric and governmental politics have appeared. While party rhetoric is formed by a need to earn credibility by showing continuity in made promises, governmental politics is formed by a need to find practical solutions to welfare-, economic- and environmental problems.</p>

Homeownership and suburbanisation are two sides of the same coin in the context of Australia. This thesis explores the housing system that facilitates homeownership under a framework of institutional path dependence and how that has facilitated spatial patterns of suburbanization in contemporary Melbourne. Australia has been considered a homeowner society for the larger part of the 20th century. Living and owning a house on a ‘quarter acre block’ in one of its major cities is said to have been a virtue even before homeownership was in reach for the majority of the Australian population. The years after WWII enabled up to 70 per cent of the population to access homeownership tenure. In that, this thesis analyses the institutional, societal and economic configurations that enabled increased homeownership provision, but also the historical processes that further facilitated a system around a dominant tenure. Path dependency theory, developed in the field of historical institutionalism, offers an analytical toolbox to examine long-term processes. In a broad sense, path dependency refers to the continuous reproduction of institutional systems in place. The second part of this thesis examines urbanisation processes in Melbourne, under a framework of institutional and spatial change. Cities are changing environments that, although, they inhabit determinist and reinforcing spatial patterns and institutions, transition over time. By looking at historical and contemporary institutional processes, this thesis examines metropolitan strategies to consolidate the outward growth in the city of Melbourne. Under the aspect of change, current challenges to the built environment are presented. A third analysis connects the macro discussion with a case study of a local housing provider in Melbourne, that in some regards may be viewed as antithesis to the contemporary building regime in the Australian and Melbourne context. As the first in-depth path dependency analysis in the Australian context, this thesis can be viewed as a contribution to the growing body of path dependency literature with a housing focus that also combines the spatial nature of urban environments.

This thesis is an inquiry into the challenges to the role of civic organisations in political reform during and after political transitions. The major question this research addresses is: How do institutions and institutional dynamics constrain political reform during a transition? The thesis examines how demands for reform by non-governmental organisations in Lebanon and Libya were not translated into concrete political decisions taken by regimes during a transition period. The thesis suggests that the combination of weak states and power-sharing agreements marginalizes civic organisations, and poses institutional constraints on the likelihood of reform. The thesis is based on contemporary research on events and reform trajectories in Lebanon and Libya, with a focus on the demands and strategies employed by activists during periods of transition. Lebanon between 2005 and 2010 and Libya between 2011 and 2013 underwent critical political events but subsequently did not adopt political reforms despite demands by civic organisations in two main areas: the electoral system in Lebanon and the constitutional process in Libya. A study of these two reform campaigns reveals deeply entrenched historical patterns and elements of continuity that led to path dependent outcomes during transition. By utilising theory and concepts from the perspective of historical institutionalism, the thesis identifies the factors behind path dependent outcomes in Lebanon and Libya. I argue that the transitions in Lebanon and Libya were a result of only ‘partially' critical junctures. The thesis builds on the approach of path dependence by offering insights as to how historically inherited institutional dynamics from the previous regime can cause junctures to be only ‘partially' critical for the broader political order. The main source of data comes from participant observations, interviews and focus groups with two organisations that tried to advance electoral reform and constitutional development.

Why do some individuals endorse public policies aimed at reducing income inequality while others oppose them? Why is there widespread support for such policies in certain countries, but not in others? This dissertation advances scholarship toward a general theory of support for redistribution by analyzing variation in redistributive attitudes within and across two developing democracies, Argentina and Peru. Support for redistribution is higher in the former country. It examines existing theories based on interests and group identity, explanations whose predictions have been almost exclusively evaluated in the context of advanced industrial democracies. It also introduces and assesses a belief-based explanation that focuses on inequality frames, simplified mental models of the issue of inequality comprised of individuals’ beliefs about the causes of economic outcomes, about the extent to which society provides equal opportunities, and about the nature of wealth accumulation. This dissertation argues that these theories are complementary and identifies the contextual factors that condition the extent to which the considerations emphasized by these accounts inform redistributive attitudes. Interests and group identity are salient in contexts where individuals have access to material and informational resources that make them more cognizant of their position along economic and ethnic cleavages. In contrast, inequality frames inform redistributive attitudes regardless of context because of their inside-the-head nature. This study shows that the relative dominance of redistributive beliefs in Argentina and self-reliance beliefs in Peru help explain why support for redistribution is higher in the former country. Finally, this dissertation develops a politico-historical explanation for why and how these frames became relatively dominant. This account argues that individuals’ inequality frames are relatively stable during times of normal politics, but malleable during certain critical political junctures brought about by major events like mass political incorporation or economic crises. During such times, individuals are particularly receptive to elite cues and messages that are transmitted not only via rhetoric but also via public policies. Redistributive beliefs become dominant wherever political actors whose discourse features elements consistent with the redistributive frame are able to implement successful comprehensive social policies. The self-reliance frame becomes dominant in countries where this combination of rhetoric and policies does not take place during a critical juncture. / text

This study focuses upon the new societal objects that are termed public private partnerships where the public sector forms strategic alliances with the private sector and the civil society to manage the wicked issues of today. An exampel of such cooperation is Vänerhamn AB where the municipalities around the lake of Vänern and the private shipping companies got togheter to handle an economic crisis of the shipping buisiness. The partnership Vänerhamn has developed from a problematic activity to a healthy company and the aim of this thesis is to illuminate this development through an historical institutional approach, focusing critical juncture to discover if the governance theory can be used to understand the partnerships positive process.   This will be done through research questions about the organisation of the partnership, about the members interests with the partnership and about eventually coordination problems in the partnership. The questions derive from dimensions in governance theory, central for the activity of partnerships. Interviews with central informants where held and it was complemented through a document analyses in order to search for indications of the dimensions and that is the methodological approach of the study.   The conclusion of this thesis is that the governance theory can be used to understand Vänerhamns postive development since the members interest with the partnership to a begining was not at all conformed and that led to obvious coordination problems. With more conformed interests the coordination problems were almost absent and the partnership made success. In this case the organisation of the partnership did not matter as it was a registered company during the whole time. The central sapiency of the thesis is that the public sector has to learn more about the private sector and vice versa.