The purpose of this essay is to examine wage-earners' investment funds from the ideological point of view. Were they in any way an integrated part of social democratical democratic socialism and reformism? I emphasize Olof Palme´s ideological idea of democratic socialism and reformism, and how he handled the issue. How did the question of these funds correspondent with the basic ideological points of view, and what was the standpoint of Palme in this issue. My method is built upon a deep study and analyses of SAP board of party and the standing committees protocol in the light of Olof Palme´s and SAP's ideology. I even use information from literature, inquiries and dissertations. I will mainly focus on Palme´s standpoint during this time. There are the tree question areas and answers in this essay. There is an obvious tension between the two poles of labour movement, the state socialism represented by the social democratic party with a social outlook from above and the movement socialism, represented by the trade union movement with view from below. How did the wage-earners' investment funds stand to this traditional tension? How did Olof Palme remain to it? The answers to these questions are, that Olof Palme was very aware of this tension and he warned the trade union to be too radical. The proposal had a more reformistic formation when it was transmitted from the movement socialistic pole to the state socialistic pole. How did the wage-earners' investment funds fit in democratic socialism? The proposal of the wage-earners' investment funds meant that the function socialistic line, which traditionally was brought by the social democracy, now was changed to the line of ownership. Was it Palmes intention to implement a socialistic society with the help of the wage-earners' investment funds, to be more an a large public sector? The final proposition was a compromise and had lost its radical characteristics. It was never Olof Palme’s intention to implement a socialistic society with the help of the wage-earners' investment funds. How did the wage-earners' investment funds fit in the reformistic point of view? Were they system changing or system preserving, or both? The answer to this in this essay is, that the origin proposal was radical and system changing. The final proposal was both system preserving and system changing.

Land ist eine kritische Ressource für nachhaltige Entwicklung, doch ihre relative Knappheit erfordert Abwägungen, die für eine Gestaltung von nachhaltiger und gerechter Politik identifiziert werden müssen. Diese ist empirisch herausfordernd, da Landressourcen in verschiedenen abgelegenen lokalen Bedingungen genutzt werden und über voneinander abhängigen globalen Märkten gehandelt werden. Diese Dissertation trägt mit drei empirischen Studien zu dieser Identifizierungsbemühung bei. Das erste Kapitel hinterfragt das Potenzial von Preisanreizen zur Eindämmung der Entwaldung für Ölpalmplantagen in Indonesien. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass machbare marktbasierte Eingriffe in der vorgelagerten Palmöl-Lieferkette die nicht regulierte Entwaldung effektiv und gerecht reduzieren könnten, die ansonsten dem globalen Bedarf folgen würde. Das zweite Kapitel untersucht die Ausbreitungsmechanismen, durch die Schocks auf globalen Landressourcenmärkten indirekt zu Landnutzungsänderungen führen. Die Ergebnisse bestätigen einen globalen Verdrängungsmechanismus und etablieren einen kausalen Zusammenhang zwischen den Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) in den Vereinigten Staaten und der Ausweitung bedeutender landwirtschaftlicher treibender Kräfte der Entwaldung in pan-tropischen Gebieten. Das dritte Kapitel erforscht die Auswirkungen der RFS auf internationale Unterernährung. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der disruptive Effekt der Nachfrage-Schocks durch die RFS dank ihrer Vorhersehbarkeit abgemildert wird. Dennoch werden Bedenken bezüglich der Ernährungssicherheit in Ländern erhoben, in denen die Lebensmittelversorgung von Importen abhängt, insbesondere im Falle unerwarteter Schocks auf den globalen Märkten für Landressourcen. / Land is a critical resource for sustainable development, but its relative scarcity implies trade-offs that need to be identified to design sustainable and fair policy. This task is challenging empirically, because land resources are used in a variety of remote local conditions, and they are traded through interdependent global markets. This thesis contributes three empirical studies to this identification effort. The first chapter questions the potential of price incentives to mitigate deforestation for oil palm plantations in Indonesia. The results indicate that feasible market interventions upstream the palm oil supply chain could effectively and equitably mitigate unregulated deforestation otherwise left to follow global demand. The second chapter tests the propagation mechanisms through which shocks on global markets for land resources indirectly cause land use change. The results corroborate a global scale displacement mechanism specifically, and they establish a causal link between the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) in the United States and the expansion of major agricultural drivers of deforestation in pan-tropical areas. The third chapter explores the impact of the RFS on international undernourishment. The results indicate that the disruptive effect of the demand shocks by the RFS is mitigated by their predictability. Yet, this raises concerns about food security in countries where calorific supply depends on imports, in the case of unexpected shocks on global markets for land resources.

Avec la Révolution tranquille, la Grande Noirceur occupe une place de choix dans l’imaginaire collectif des Québécois. Ces deux mythistoires articulent une conception dichotomique du passé québécois où l’année 1960 apparaît comme une fracture entre deux temps et deux mondes, entre l’Ancien et le Nouveau Régime. Cette thèse s’intéresse aux origines caricaturales de la Grande Noirceur duplessiste. Jusqu’ici, les chercheurs qui ont abordé la question des mythistoires constitutifs du Québec moderne se sont surtout arrêtés aux discours des intellectuels regroupés au sein du journal Le Devoir, de la revue Cité Libre et de la Faculté des Sciences sociales de l’Université Laval. Pour notre part, nous mettons en lumière la contribution du caricaturiste Robert La Palme dans la conception et la diffusion du mythistoire de la Grande Noirceur duplessiste au Québec. Robert La Palme est l’un des plus éminents caricaturistes que le Québec ait connus. Entre 1939 et 1962, à l’emploi des plus importants journaux canadiens-français de l’époque, il présente sa vision caustique de l’actualité. Au fil des ans, quantité de personnages de tous horizons et milieux politiques et culturels se sont retrouvés dans le grand théâtre qu’est son œuvre satirique. Mais nul n’a autant retenu l’attention de l’artiste que Maurice Duplessis, chef de l’Union nationale et premier ministre de la province de Québec de 1936 à 1939, puis de 1944 jusqu’à son décès survenu en 1959. Dans des centaines de caricatures, La Palme prend un malin plaisir à caricaturer l’homme et son « régime », ses idées et ses convictions, ses actes et ses prises de position. Ce faisant, le caricaturiste produit quelques-unes des images d’Épinal de la Grande Noirceur duplessiste. Par le truchement de l’œuvre du caricaturiste Robert La Palme, cette thèse étudie les processus de production et de circulation des discours ayant pour objet la Grande Noirceur duplessiste depuis les années 1940. Nous montrons que Robert La Palme tient un discours original sur la Grande Noirceur duplessiste. Sa contribution la plus importante à cet effet est certainement la formule « Toé, tais-toé! », que le caricaturiste est le premier à mettre dans la bouche de Maurice Duplessis. Cette formule est, depuis, devenue l’un des fleurons de ce mythistoire. D’autres discours sur la Grande Noirceur duplessiste ont recours aux caricatures de La Palme. Deux brochures électorales du Parti libéral provincial ainsi que des manuels scolaires, un événement commémoratif et une synthèse historique ont retenu notre attention. Dans les années 1940 et 1950, le Parti libéral provincial recourt aux caricatures de La Palme pour répondre à la démagogie de l’Union nationale. Quand la caricature ne sert pas carrément de discours politique, celui-ci prend les traits de la caricature. Depuis les années 1980 enfin, les caricatures de Robert La Palme ont été utilisées pour des motifs éducatifs, commémoratifs et historiques afin de renforcer le mythistoire de la Grande Noirceur duplessiste. / Alongside the Quiet Revolution, the Great Darkness occupies a special place in the collective imaginary of the Quebeckers. Those two mythistories articulate a dichotomical conception of Quebec’s past where the year 1960 appears as a fracture between two distinct times and two worlds, between the Old and the New Regime. This thesis explores the caricatural origins of the Great Darkness of the Duplessis era. Up until now, researchers who have discussed the matter of the constitutive mythistories of modern Quebec were mostly interested in the discourses from intellectuals grouped at newspaper Le Devoir, journal Cité Libre and the Faculté des Sciences sociales of the Université Laval. As for us, we focus on the contribution of caricaturist Robert La Palme in the conception and diffusion of the mythistory of the Great Darkness of the Duplessis era in Quebec. Robert La Palme is one of the most prominent caricaturists that Quebec has ever known. Between 1939 and 1962, he worked at the most important French-Canadian newspapers of the time and presented his caustic view of current affairs. Throughout the years, a wide variety of characters from all political and cultural backgrounds found their way inside the great theatre which was his satirical comedy. No one else attracted the attention of the artist more than Maurice Duplessis, leader of the Union Nationale and Premier of the province of Quebec from 1936 to 1939, then from 1944 right until his death in 1959. In hundreds of caricatures, La Palme took malicious delight in drawing caricatures of the man and his “regime”, his ideas and his convictions, acts and position statements. By doing so, the caricaturist produced some of the iconic images of the Great Darkness of the Duplessis era. Carried out through the works of caricaturist Robert La Palme, this thesis studies the production process and flow of the discourses that referred to the Great Darkness of the Duplessis era since the 1940s. We show that Robert La Palme gave an original discourse on the Great Darkness of the Duplessis era. His most important contribution to this regard is the formula “Toé, tais-toé!”, that he first put over the mouth of Maurice Duplessis. This formula has since become one of the icons of this mythistory. Other discourses regarding the Great Darkness of the Duplessis era have also resorted to La Palme’s caricatures. Two electoral brochures of the provincial Liberal Party as well as schoolbooks, a commemorative event and an historical synthesis grabbed our attention. In the 1940s and 1950s, the provincial Liberal Party used La Palme’s caricatures in order to reply to the Union Nationale’s demagoguery. When the caricature did not serve as a political discourse, the latter took the traits of the caricature. Since the 1980s, Robert La Palme’s caricatures were finally put to use for educative, commemorative and historical purposes to enhance the mythistory of the Great Darkness of the Duplessis era.

An analysis of Soviet history and political thought in the context of imperialism and colonialism This study attempts to clarify problems with dominant liberal narratives and historiography relating to the Soviet Union, particularly relating to questions of empire and colonialism, and instead platforms Third World Marxists and other anti-imperialist scholars and revolutionaries whose views have been effectively sidelined and stifled. By tracing the history of political thought around these questions from pre-revolutionary Marxists through to Cold War era anti-colonial and pan-African scholars and revolutionaries alongside developments in the dynamic and forms of imperialism, and by situating anti-colonial nationalisms in the context of worldmaking rather than state building, this text aims to contribute to analyses of Soviet policy and its relationship to the global history of decolonisation in the 20th Century. This work identifies serious theoretical and ideological deficiencies in existing literature and concludes that concise definitions of imperialism and empire such as those used by V.I. Lenin and Kwame Nkrumah are not consistent with commonly held beliefs about the role played by the Soviet Union in the history of anti-colonial and national liberation movements. Western liberal literature on this subject has suffered significantly as a result of political and ideological prejudices stemming directly from the US Cold War victory and psychological warfare campaigns targeting communist and anti-colonial movements to this end. My research indicates that misidentification and misuse of terms relating to empire and colonialism pose serious obstacles and risks to present and future efforts geared towards global peace and equality which add urgency to the correction of mistakes both in scholarly and popular historical, political, and cultural approaches to interpretations of Soviet history. / Graduate