Thesis (MSOCSCI(Sociology)--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Este trabalho procura conhecer os caminhos que levaram a construção da imagem do poeta Gonçalves Dias que conhecemos hoje. Procura-se entender de que forma ele veio a construir o nome, no cenário letrado do Império do Brasil, que o fez ser identificado como o poeta nacional por excelência, e também, identificar, em que esferas e projetos ele atuou durante o processo de construção de sua imagem. Nesse caminho, trabalhou-se com a análise de sua correspondência, de modo a perceber qual o peso que suas relações sociais exerceram na formação de sua identidade autoral. Entende-se também que a imagem/memória de Gonçalves Dias hoje conhecida foi fruto dos esforços de seus biógrafos, se não em criá-la, ao menos em fixá-la, ao longo dos anos, de modo a reservar para Gonçalves Dias, definitivamente, um lugar no panteon nacional. / This paper seeks to understand the images related with the construction of Gonçalves Dias as a recognized author and poet, in the literary scene of Brazils Empire. In this way, we are working with the analysis of his correspondence, in order to see how much weight their social relations exercised in that self construction. We also understand those images and representations of Gonçalves Dias as the result of an effort done by his biographers. If his biographers did not invent him, certainly they have contributed to fix, over the years, a place for Gonçalves Dias in the national pantheon.

Every nation exists as a brand with either positive or negative attributes and any other nation and individual that interact with it either will positively or negatively contribute to its nation image. A nation’s brand image may have evolved over many years, shaped by wars, religion, diplomacy or the lack of it, international sporting triumph or disasters, and by the brand itself. Zimbabwe as a nation is suffering from a negative image gained during 2000-2008 that has been characterised by inter alia the fast track land reform programme, political instability, corruption, hyperinflation, and so forth. The country has experienced a major transformation in its political environment that has had a positive effect on all sectors of national development. The new inclusive government, thriving on national unity has seen the people of Zimbabwe combining effort to work together to sustain the development of the country. The aim of this study was to investigate how nation branding for Zimbabwe can help the country to brand itself as a safe destination for tourists, investors, and visitors. The major question therefore, pertains to how all sectors in the economy of Zimbabwe can combine their efforts to brand Zimbabwe and make it compete more efficiently at all levels. Empirical findings revealed that tourist attractions have a positive relationship with nation branding. The empirical results also indicated that entertainment events have a positive relationship with nation branding. It can be recommended that Zimbabwe needs to identify tourist attractions and entertainment events to increase its nation branding. The empirical results of the study also indicated that nation branding has a positive relationship with nation building in Zimbabwe. It was also shown that nation branding has a positive relationship with good governance in Zimbabwe. These results indicate that it would be easier to build the Zimbabwean nation when its brand is strong. Good governance, on the other hand, will increase if the nation’s branding improves.

This research assesses changes in Canada’s national park system between the years 2000-2015 and places these changes within the broad social, political, and economic context in Canada, as well as within trends in international conservation policy and practice. The animating research questions include: how did Parks Canada respond in the fifteen years following the report of the 2000 Panel on Environmental Integrity? What political, economic, and cultural factors influenced Parks Canada Agency in this period? A further research question emerged from my findings: Why has it been so hard for Parks Canada to lead with ecological integrity as its first priority? Through a political ecological lens, the research utilizes a mixed methods approach. Using semi-formal interviews with retired Parks Canada managers, I was able to establish what had changed and how these changes were interpreted by these former employees. I also interviewed environmental NGOs to gather information on how those outside the Agency viewed the changes taking place within Parks Canada. I then collected and reviewed primary Parks Canada documents to establish the main changes, including of policy, as well as budgets and expenditures. My research found that in this period, despite efforts to shift the culture of the organization of Parks Canada to ecological integrity (EI) the Agency deepened its emphasis on visitor experience. The most recent "decade of change" in Canadian national parks policy and practice is thus reminiscent of the century-long struggle to determine whom or what parks are for and the role that Parks Canada plays in the production of Canadian identity. Although we are tempted to conclude that the decades repeat themselves like a pendulum swinging between “use” and “preservation,” this analysis suggests that this decade of change is distinct from the previous decades, with the institution increasingly emphasizing its role as nation-builder and tourism provider. This research purposes that a kind of Polanyian “double movement” is playing out on a new foundational terrain characterized by neoliberal solutions for conservation, a terrain influenced by a broader, global neoliberal transformation within state institutions. / Graduate / 2021-05-18

Thesis advisor: Gerald Easter / The U.S. military is asked to perform statebuilding operations far more often than it engages in conventional warfare against opposing uniformed state militaries. The U.S. military has engaged in 13 major armed statebuilding operations during and since WWII, along with numerous smaller operations throughout the world, and the most optimistic measures of success are less than 50 percent. Why, despite statebuilding being the most common task it is asked to perform, is U.S. military performance in statebuilding operations still so poor. This puzzle cannot be answered by current research on military effectiveness since this body of research focuses exclusively either on a military’s effectiveness in conventional combat, or on a military’s effectiveness in the conventional combat aspects of non-conventional operations. This gap is detrimental since militaries are frequently asked to perform a wide range of missions far beyond conventional operations. The U.S. military consistently resists statebuilding operational tasks when conducting such operations and consistently dismantles what little statebuilding capacity it does build following the statebuilding operation. This dissertation takes a novel approach by disaggregating between the three statebuilding tasks the U.S. military identifies as tasks it should be able to perform in statebuilding operations, building infrastructure, building and training local security forces, and building and supporting local governance. It finds that the military actually performs well in some statebuilding tasks and poorly in others. This dissertation presents the Primary Mission Theory to explain this divergence in effectiveness, which argues that militaries will preference those tasks that contribute to what they consider to be their primary mission, which is almost always conventional combat. Thus, statebuilding tasks will be preferenced only if they can also contribute to conventional combat capabilities. I trace the historical development statebuilding institutions within the U.S. military and conduct case studies on operations in Afghanistan and Vietnam in support of the presented theory. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

In most nationstates the construction and making of a national identity is a historic phenomenon as the process started hundreds of years ago. In Namibia however, the construction of a nation and a national identity has just been instigated. Namibia, as one of the last colonies in Africa, did not gain independence until 1990. For a long time, Namibia was subjected to German as well as South African colonial and apartheid rule. Our aim with this essay was to examine the Namibian construction of a national identity, with reference to Namibia's historical postcolonial and postapartheid background. The focus is on how people from two ethnic backgrounds, the Owambo and the San, experience their situation as Namibians in one of the youngest countries in Africa. Hence, we have made 22 interviews in northern Namibia during the fall of 2004. The purpose with this essay has been to comprehend and present a process of nation-building and national identity in the making. We have found that 'ethnicity' still is an important mean of identification in Namibia. Moreover, the fact that Namibia is a postcolonial and postapartheid state, strongly affects the Namibian nation-building and the construction of a Namibian identity. Ethnic categories are still ingrained in people; the distinctions signify difference, and are used as means of identification. Alhough simultaneously, the segregation forced by the colonisers has now made ethnic categories less distinct since such divisions relate to apartheid and repression. The Owambo group tend to be more aware of their position as Namibians in the Namibian nation than the San groups, and their culture is to a large extent 'dominant' and influences the nation-building. The Owambos identify themselves as Namibians. The San groups on the other hand, identify themselves with their ethnic or tribal group. They are also in an inferior minority position, which they are highly aware of.

Damming is one of the most high-profile forms of human intervention in the environment, and it is commonly found across the modern Korean landscape. Since the 1960s, under the name of "Comprehensive Water Resources Development," South Korean state engineers have constructed more than a dozen large multi-purpose dams on rivers in the nation. The prevailing Korean narrative tends to regard the surge of large dam-building as the outcome of modern state authority. Rather than granting all agency to the state, this dissertation shifts focus to newly emerged water experts who rationalized the damming of the nation. These new experts with backgrounds in civil engineering embraced hydrology as part of their research agenda to lead a comprehensive dam construction plan from a perspective of national water circulation. By examining the work of these experts, I demonstrate that river engineering became crucial for Korean engineers to position themselves in the developing nation that stood between the colonial legacy on the one side and American hegemony on the other. By utilizing both colonial data and Western development models, hydrological engineers quantified rivers, a process that compressed complex understandings of and interactions with unruly rivers into a singular vision—rivers as a manageable national resource. This conceptual and physical infrastructure naturalized a form of life dedicated to industrial South Korea while marginalizing social and cultural lives in rural areas. I ultimately argue that the modern dammed riverscape of the nation is the product of engineers' precarious and contested efforts to build their own professional identities and research programs in developing South Korea. This contextualization of river engineering allows us to examine the violence of river engineering not just from a lens of top-down state authority but from compromises, contestations, and negotiations over the legitimate forms of rivers, modern South Korea, and how they are related. / Doctor of Philosophy / Damming is one of the most visible forms of human intervention in the environment, and it is commonly found across the modern Korean landscape. Since the 1960s, under the name of "Comprehensive Water Resources Development," South Korean state engineers have constructed more than a dozen large multi-purpose dams on rivers in the nation. The prevailing Korean narrative tends to regard the surge of large dam-building as the outcome of modern state authority. Rather than granting all agency to the state, this dissertation shifts focus to newly emerged water experts who rationalized the damming of the nation. These new experts with backgrounds in civil engineering embraced hydrology as part of their research agenda to lead a comprehensive dam construction plan from a perspective of national water circulation. By examining the work of these experts, I demonstrate that river engineering became crucial for Korean engineers to position themselves in the developing nation that stood between the colonial legacy on the one side and American hegemony on the other. By utilizing both colonial data and Western development models, hydrological engineers quantified rivers, a process that compressed complex understandings of and interactions with unruly rivers into a singular vision—rivers as a manageable national resource. This conceptual and physical infrastructure naturalized a form of life dedicated to industrial South Korea while marginalizing social and cultural lives in rural areas. This historical investigation of river engineering shows that the current riverscape and its violence in modern South Korea are the products of compromises, contestations, and negotiations over the legitimate forms of rivers, modern South Korea, and how they are related.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Kenya's national policies of education are consistent with the principles of nation building and state sovereignty. The investigation involved developing eight multiple regression models. Each model utilized one dependent variable, one independent variable and two control variables. The dependent variables were the average boys and the average girls public primary education gross enrollment ratios for 2000-03, the boys and the girls public primary education completion rates for the class of 2003, and the boys and the girls public primary education gross enrollment ratios for 2003. The independent variables were the public primary education pupil/teacher ratios for 2000 and the public primary education pupil/teacher ratios for 2003. The two control variables were the percentage of the population living in towns in 1999 and the percentage of the population in wage employment in 1999. The only significant results were a negative relationship between public primary education pupil/teacher ratios for 2003 and the girls public primary education completion rates for the class of 2003 and, a positive relationship between the percentage of the population in wage employment in 1999 and the girls public primary education completion rates for the class of 2003. The results suggested that Kenya's national policies of education are not consistent with the principles of nation building and state sovereignty and led to the conclusion that Kenya's public primary education may not be playing the nation-building role that it should play. / Ph. D.

Mediante a teoria do discurso de Ernesto Laclau, a tese analisa as concepções de Estados Falidos e nation-building presentes em documentos produzidos durante a administração George W. Bush. Almejamos entender como o fracasso estatal foi concebido como um evento eminentemente doméstico, assim como as ideias de que a democracia liberal é a melhor instituição para os Estados Falidos, e que os EUA possuem capacidade reconhecida para reconstruir Estados. Nossas hipóteses são as seguintes: primeiramente, por meio de premissas do institucionalismo da escolha racional, a história dos Estados Falidos é vista de maneira pejorativa, julgada à luz do desenvolvimento político e econômico ocidental. Em segundo lugar, a democracia é aqui compreendida como um significante vazio, visto que, seria não apenas o melhor e mais justo sistema político e econômico, mas também aquele que permitiria que países executassem de maneira mais eficiente funções estatais consideradas essenciais. Finalmente, com base em uma série de estudos de casos, os documentos apresentam uma visão dos EUA enquanto país historicamente engajado em nation-building, começando com as intervenções na Alemanha e no Japão ao final da Segunda Guerra Mundial, até as recentes operações no Afeganistão e no Iraque após os atentados de 11 de setembro de 2001. / Using Ernesto Laclaus discourse theory, this dissertation analyzes the conceptions of failed states and nation-building presented in documents produced during George W. Bushs administration. We intend to understand how it was possible to conceive state failure as an essentially domestic event, as well as the ideas that democracy is the best institution for failed states and that the U.S has a proven capacity to rebuild states. Our hypotheses are the following: firstly, through assumptions based upon rational choice institutionalism, the history of failed states is seen in a depreciative manner by being judged in light of a Western model of economic and political development. Secondly, democracy is here understood as an empty signifier, given that it is not only the best and the fairest political and economic system, but also the one that today enables countries to perform essential state tasks in a more efficient fashion. Finally, through a series of case studies, the documents present the idea that the U.S is historically engaged in nation-building, from the occupations of Germany and Japan at the end of World War II to the recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 11th, 2001, attacks.

Mediante a teoria do discurso de Ernesto Laclau, a tese analisa as concepções de Estados Falidos e nation-building presentes em documentos produzidos durante a administração George W. Bush. Almejamos entender como o fracasso estatal foi concebido como um evento eminentemente doméstico, assim como as ideias de que a democracia liberal é a melhor instituição para os Estados Falidos, e que os EUA possuem capacidade reconhecida para reconstruir Estados. Nossas hipóteses são as seguintes: primeiramente, por meio de premissas do institucionalismo da escolha racional, a história dos Estados Falidos é vista de maneira pejorativa, julgada à luz do desenvolvimento político e econômico ocidental. Em segundo lugar, a democracia é aqui compreendida como um significante vazio, visto que, seria não apenas o melhor e mais justo sistema político e econômico, mas também aquele que permitiria que países executassem de maneira mais eficiente funções estatais consideradas essenciais. Finalmente, com base em uma série de estudos de casos, os documentos apresentam uma visão dos EUA enquanto país historicamente engajado em nation-building, começando com as intervenções na Alemanha e no Japão ao final da Segunda Guerra Mundial, até as recentes operações no Afeganistão e no Iraque após os atentados de 11 de setembro de 2001. / Using Ernesto Laclaus discourse theory, this dissertation analyzes the conceptions of failed states and nation-building presented in documents produced during George W. Bushs administration. We intend to understand how it was possible to conceive state failure as an essentially domestic event, as well as the ideas that democracy is the best institution for failed states and that the U.S has a proven capacity to rebuild states. Our hypotheses are the following: firstly, through assumptions based upon rational choice institutionalism, the history of failed states is seen in a depreciative manner by being judged in light of a Western model of economic and political development. Secondly, democracy is here understood as an empty signifier, given that it is not only the best and the fairest political and economic system, but also the one that today enables countries to perform essential state tasks in a more efficient fashion. Finally, through a series of case studies, the documents present the idea that the U.S is historically engaged in nation-building, from the occupations of Germany and Japan at the end of World War II to the recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 11th, 2001, attacks.