Advertising has a powerful role in today’s society, especially since we are constantly surrounded by it. Advertisement does not only encourage people to make decisions about their purchases but has a big impact on the culture (Lin & Yeh, 2009; Lindner, 2004). Hence, it is a big factor of creating norms and ideas of what is feminine and masculine; thus affecting the perception on gender within societies. Unfortunate is however that to be able to cut through the enormous advertising clutter that people are exposed to daily, advertisers tend to use sexual content and portrayals as tactic, leading to an obscure ideal (Dahl, Segupta & Vohs, 2009; Cortese, 2008; Connell & Pearse, 2015; Butler & Almqvist, 2007). This quantitative and qualitative study examines from a Gender and Feminist theory perspective how women are portrayed sexually and stereotypically in advertisements within Mexican fashion magazines. The advertisements found within the seven biggest fashion magazines in Mexico are being studied both through a quantitative content analyse and qualitative text analyse using a semiotic approach. The result of the study shows that the content of advertisements in Mexican magazines frequently portray females in a sexualised and stereotypical way. Within our qualitative result six different stereotypes could be found. Furthermore, our quantitative result shows that the most commonly portrayed female within the advertisements are White. Henceforth, our result shows that a female ideal where the most crucial attributes are: to be sexy, beautiful, obtain an attractive appearance and to be White.

This study develops a conceptualisation of the political cultures of the Chilean Socialist Party (PSCh) in order to understand and develop an explanation of the nomination of Michelle Bachelet as presidential candidate in 2005 which avoids the oversimplifications of existing approaches. At the theoretical level, political culture is defined from the collective action perspective conceptualising it as a framework for action (Elkin, 1993: 123). This political culture is formed by patterns for political participation which drive internal power relations between members and leaders. The formation of these patterns is influenced by their social context which is mediated by groups of members and leaders in relation to their histories, experiences of critical historical junctures and ideological heritages. The conceptualisation developed thus links structure and agency in a way that enables a nuanced analysis of inter-party power relationships and agency. This fosters a deeper explanation of Bachelet’s nomination and enables evaluation of its meaning for the party as an institution. It also help us to understand internal dynamics and contradictions than could be found in her nomination. I argue that the PSCh has historically had two political cultures whose relative balance of power within the party has shifted over time. The first which I name the institutional pattern is a normative pattern which frames political participation as libertarian, democratic and pluralistic. Currently it is the non-dominant political culture to be found in the party bases. The second is the dominant party political culture which I name the practice pattern. This frames relationships between members and leaders from the perspective of co-optation, authoritarianism and hegemony over decision-making. The formation of these political cultures has been influenced by the Chilean social context during three stages of party institutional development: Foundational (1933-1956), the New Left (1956-1979), and Socialist Renewal (1979-2005). The first political culture represented in the institutional pattern is formed during the Foundational stage, where political participation is based on Pizzorno’s system of solidarity and collective identification. The second political culture, represented by the practice pattern integrated ideas about discipline and obedience presented in the New Left stage but is reinforced during the Socialist Renewal stage, when participation shifted to Pizzorno’s system of interest and individual goals. These two political cultures define and delimit participation within the party, which is highly individualised. Membership and leadership participation is settled between factions, but also results in the presence of informal types of membership and leadership within the party. Factional membership and leadership is the attribute which legitimises a subject as party member. In Bachelet’s case, her persona brings together these two cultures, despite increasing tensions between excluded sectors in the base and leadership of the party and the hegemonic leadership. The first institutional pattern played to an idea that her candidacy and nomination represented the inclusion of historical members as part of pluralism and democracy. The discontented base membership linked her persona with this pattern and supported her. However, as a faction leader and mandatario she also reinforced the elitist and hegemonic 'practice pattern' of participation, which resulted in strong disciplinary relationships coming from the faction’s elite in order to secure her nomination. As a result, the elitist practice pattern was deepened due to the strengthening of authoritarianism, co-optation and hegemony within the party. This then helps us understand the fragility of party unity in support of her candidacy and the subsequent division of the party in 2010 when a coalition of the right was elected to power.

Inspired by the Enlightenment’s principles of rationality, positivistic ideologies as well as the nascent modern-industrial state, sociology since its inception in Europe was conceived as a fundamentally secular enterprise. Whereas positivistic streams have been rather left aside, secularism in sociology still remains as a cornerstone of the discipline’s identity. However, is sociology in the 21st-century really ‘secular’? In this dissertation I present to the reader an empirical research about the epistemological influences of Catholicism upon sociology in Mexico, a constitutionally secular state since the 19th century. Theoretically, I draw from authors who have put forward the epistemological influences of Christianity upon western social science. I argue that these authors have unintentionally re-stated, with interesting additions, Durkheim’s rather neglected theses about the socio-religious origin of our ‘categories of thought’ –‘classification’ and ‘causality’ in particular. Although I will not attempt to trace the origins of sociological classifications and causalities back to Catholicism in Mexico, I will argue that it is possible to find salient similarities between both knowledge fields in terms of these categories and other discursive characteristics. By analysing these resemblances in a (neo)Durkheimian-Weberian frame, I will explain how Catholic discourses in Mexico, combined with the Mexican state’s teleological discourses on democracy, modernisation and progress, influence sociological discourses not through Durkheim’s ‘imitative rites’ and a priori ‘necessary connections’, but through a series of ‘bridge’ institutions and particular cultural-ideological structures. Individuals’ own religious beliefs and their deliberate and unintended interactions with these elements and their emergent properties turn apparently parochial Catholic discourses into a series of ‘discursive offensives’ which subtly yet pervasively shape common sense in society at large and also predispose sociology practitioners to adopt and develop i) ‘mono-causal’ and ‘power-over’ interpretations of social phenomena, ii) implicit and explicit dichotomistic logics as well as iii) normative-prescriptive sociological stances. In arguing this, I account for how Weberian authority models and Weberian-Mertonian religious values are not only key ‘background factors’, but also constitute actual cognitive devices in the production of sociological knowledge. I also offer empirical evidence about the role that individuals’ religious beliefs play in the conception of sociological models of power and causality and, by extension, in the construction of scientific reason or scientific beliefs. These accounts support the view of contemporary religions as plastic discourses whose ideological powers permeate, under certain historical conditions, the knowledge produced in scientific domains whose secularity has been mistakenly taken for granted. And this, I conclude, strongly suggests the need to revise the secularist foundations of sociologies of science and scientific knowledge, of sociology in general as well as current monolithic theories and paradigms of secularism and science-religion dualistic debates.

This dissertation, explores the institutional and cultural revival of Guatemalan Catholicism during the twentieth century. First, it examines the changing character of Church-state relations in Guatemala in the 1920s and 1930s. The gradual decline of anticlericalism and emergence of a modus vivendi between the Guatemalan Liberal state and the Catholic Church proved fundamental for the reemergence of the Church as a social and political actor in the 1950s and 1960s. Second, this work analyzes the Catholic Action movement as a window to study this resurgence. Although it started as a socially conservative movement dedicated to implanting Catholic orthodoxy and curbing the advance of communism among Guatemala’s popular sectors, Catholic Action in the 1950s nevertheless evolved into an instrument of economic and social change. In applying the Gospel to social reality and bringing the Church into closer contact with rural Maya communities and urban workers, this movement became a precursor of Liberation Theology. Catholic Action served as a meeting point from which subaltern groups – namely lay indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, and priests and nuns from the United States and Europe – strove to transform Guatemalan society through the promotion of literacy programs, health-related projects and agricultural cooperatives. In this sense, religious change proved a catalyst of socioeconomic transformations. / text

This thesis explores issues surrounding Barbadian cultural identity in the post-colonial period. Emphasis is placed on the role of history in constructing cultural identity. Beginning with the debate involving the Lord Nelson statue which stands in the capital of Barbados, the question of negotiating post-colonial space is closely examined in the three case studies that form the body of the research. These are based on evidence gathered from both archival and secondary sources, as well as personal interviews. The case studies review the following: the history of the usage of the 'Little England' motto and its renewed use in the post-colonial period; the historical development of the community group known as the Landship, whose trademark is to wear naval livery and dance their naval manoeuvres during their parades; the history of the Harvest Home/Crop Over festival of the slavery and post-slavery periods, as well as the history of the modern street festival that it has become. The thesis argues that elements of the colonial discourse gain new life in the post-colonial period because of the struggle between the colonial narrative of History and the emerging new histories. It proposes that in this Barbados example, the performance culture has provided new grounds for advancing the process of decolonisation.

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This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter addresses general aspects regarding the piercing of the corporate veil. The rationale for this chapter is to give a brief overview of piercing the corporate veil and address basic aspects that will be covered in this thesis; for example, piercing the corporate veil in corporate groups and piercing the corporate veil in the context of privately owned companies. Additionally, reasons for not covering points such as piercing the corporate veil in the context of public companies will be mentioned. The second chapter is dedicated to studying the piercing of the corporate veil in England and the U.S .. These jurisdictions are the parents of the modern corporate personality and general aspects about piercing . the corporate veil derive from these countries. Thus, Chapter Two can be regarded as a continuation of Chapter One. My purpose is to present the Anglo-American piercing of the corporate veil for it to be contrasted in Chapter Three. Chapter Two starts by addressing the piercing of the corporate veil in England and the reasons for the current position of English courts over this matter. The second part of this chapter is dedicated to the U.S. and its approaches developed in order to deal with corporate personality in that jurisdiction. This chapter concludes by stating the reasons why these jurisdictions have different positions regarding this subject. The third chapter will cover the piercing of the corporate veil in Spain and Latin America. This chapter starts by addressing general aspects of the corporate personality in Spain and Latin America as well as civil law concepts and principles used by these jurisdictions when dealing with corporate personality issues. The second section of this chapter is dedicated to Spain and corporate personality issues in that jurisdiction. Following, is the third section which starts by making a brief comment about the reasons for choosing the jurisdictions subject of study before continuing by addressing Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Brazil individually. This chapter ends by making a comparison between the methods used by Spain and the discussed Latin American jurisdictions. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the main case study, Panama. In this chapter, basic aspects of the Panamanian corporate entity in addition to the way in which Panamanian authorities have dealt with corporate veil issues to date are addressed. Finally, the principle of san a critica will be explained in the fifth chapter. The origins and rationale for the existence of sana critica and the reason to consider it suitable for supplementing an approach to deal with corporate veil issues. In addition, each of the rules on which sana critica is founded will be explained as well as the influence these rules have had over judges thinking and judgments. This chapter ends with a suggestion for the development of an approach to deal with corporate veil issues in Panama.

This thesis investigates music in Mexico City, with an emphasis on women's relationship to Romanticism, education, consumption, domestic music-making and public performance. During the first decades after independence in 1821, Mexicans began the process of constructing an identity, which musically speaking meant an expansion of the secular musical world. Such construction involved the development of internal activity alongside a conditional receptivity to external influence in the form of the visits of Italian opera companies such as those of Manuel García and Max Maretzek, and travelling virtuosi such as pianist virtuoso Henri Herz, who brought new repertoire and performance practices to Mexican theatres and homes. As consumers and as musicians, women were at the centre of such developments. In Mexico, both European music and that of local musicians was disseminated by means of ladies' journals and imported and locally-printed sheet music by foreign and Mexican composers, in order to supply a growing home market for amateurs. Abundant surviving repertoire for the home, the widespread availability of musical instruction as revealed through advertisements, and witness accounts of soirées and concerts in the theatre reveal a budding musical world that has hitherto been overlooked and which occurred during a period generally deemed of little importance in Mexican musical history. By investigating a key period in the social-cultural history of Mexican music, this thesis crafts a narrative of intersections between the musical life of Mexican women and the incipient construction of a musical-cultural identity.

This thesis examines relations between the United States and Great Britain in South America between 1939 and 1945. It does so in the broader context of the economic planning for the post-war world undertaken by the US and Britain during the Second World War. Traditional interpretations of Anglo-American post-war economic planning have tended to focus on a process whereby the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration advocated a multilateral system, based on equality of access to markets and raw materials. Doubting Britain’s ability to compete successfully in such a system, the British government baulked at the US proposal and clung to its autarkic structures constructed during the interwar years. This thesis argues that relations between the US and Britain in South America followed a different and more complex pattern. In this region it was in fact Britain that eventually took the lead in advocating multilateralism. This policy was adopted following a lengthy evaluation of British policy in Latin America, which concluded that multilateralism represented the surest means of protecting British interests in South America. The US, on the other hand, demonstrated exclusionary tendencies in its policy toward Latin America, which threatened the successful implementation of a global economic system based on multilateralism. In explaining this divergence from multilateralism in the Roosevelt administration’s post-war economic planning, this thesis pays particular attention to the influence of different factions, both within the administration and in the broader US political and business establishment. By exploring Anglo-American relations in this previously neglected region, this thesis contributes toward a greater understanding of the broader process of post-war economic planning that took place between the US and Britain during the Second World War.

In this thesis, two questions are analysed: (1) why have National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) become so widely disseminated among contemporary states? And, (2) what explains the variable institutionalisation of NHRIs once activated? The thesis first traces the diffusion of NHRIs across political regimes in general, with particular attention to unstable democratic regimes. It argues that NHRI creation can be attributed to three principal diffusion mechanisms: coercion, acculturation, and persuasion. These three explanatory models, however, lack precision. Linking each mechanism to recent processes of diffusion in Latin America, the analysis identifies how the diffusion of an Iberian variant to the generic NHRI category - the Defensorfa del Pueblo - corresponds to three intermediate categories: compulsion, material inducement and framing of ideas. The initial political circumstance of Defensoria creation in Latin America, in turn, has significant implications for their institutionalisation. A domestic level of analysis is necessary to explain the institutionalisation of Defensorias operating in the democratic regimes of Latin America. The standard explanation correlates performance with structural form. While this thesis recognises the development of formal design principles is important in explaining institutionalisation, it adds a major qualification. It shows that the informal dimension of Defensorias' relations with organised state and social actors and rules of access across accountability arenas is often decisive. A typological framework is generated to assess the impact of these two dimensions on Defensorias when formal rules are enforced in a variable manner and tend to lack stability over time. This comparative analysis highlights the accountability gap which these institutions attempt, importantly, to address. By explaining how Defensorias actually work, including when and why they matter, this thesis goes beyond narrow institutionalism as suggested by the political accountability literature.