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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-226). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / x, 226 leaves, bound 29 cm

Religious freedoms in the countries which were once part of the Soviet Union have gradually been on the decline since the mid 1990s. Reflective of de-democratisation trends in many states, religious market liberalisation has lost momentum. Governments have increasingly used methods to restrict non-traditional religious organizations similar to those used in protecting national industries. These range from subsidies for traditional churches to regulatory barriers and even outright bans on non-traditional groups. This drift towards a restrictive religious playing field has coincided with traditional dominant churches being more vocal in the debate over religious institutional design. In this thesis I examine the motives of traditionally dominant churches in either advocating legal restrictions on non-traditional religious entities or promoting a religious free market. Variation in attitudes and policies across traditional churches suggests explanatory variables are at play. A multi-methodological approach is used to understand policy formulation within the hierarchical establishments of traditional churches on religious liberties and religious pluralism. In addition to utilising path-dependent modelling to account for churches' Soviet existence, assumptions drawn from recent scholarship in applying rational choice methodology to the study of religion is used to conceptualise present-day market features. Findings from three churches suggest that a church'€™s agenda on religious liberalisation and plurality stems from hierarchical perceptions of the direction of change of their church'€™s relative influence in society. That perception is heavily rooted in the intersection of Soviet experience and transitional market place dynamics. This thesis adds a case-study contribution to the growing academic discourse on institutional change in transitional societies. In particular, it identifies the mechanisms by which institutional transformation and the creation of a vibrant civil society can stagnate in transitional societies.

With Legal pluralism, a state has more than one legal system in which rights can be attributed to citizens through private or religious actors. Lebanon has established religious family law through the constitutional charter, in which personal status is delegated to the country’s different confessions to govern. Citizens of different confessions are thus assigned different rights which particularly tends to affect the rights of women.  In this study, the impacts of Lebanon's legal pluralism on the legal status of women is being examined to give an understanding of how the legal system from a gender perspective, and to examine how the outcome affects women’s everyday life by the coexistence of religious and civil courts. The study also examines how Lebanon, with its current constitution, can fulfill the international law obligations stemming follow from the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Through legal methods and semi-structured interviews made with civil society, legal and academic persons in Beirut - the current laws in Lebanon were analyzed based on the concepts of gender, male dominance, and private and public sphere to visualize the relationship of gender and its significance in the Lebanese legal system. The results of the study show that legal pluralism in Lebanon can be understood in relation to how the complex history of the country has influenced the formation of the judicial system in which a male norm is dominating. The rights of women have been thrust to the private sphere and a masculine norm permeates the Constitution, family law and civil laws, which creates gender segregation in society. Thus, gender affects the legal status of women and the impacts of legal pluralism affect their daily lives negatively as their legal status is subordinate to men regarding marriage and its dissolution, custody of children, and nationality.                       Regarding the Conventional right, the study shows that the current constitution allows for space to fulfill CEDAW. Thus, the protection of the Convention is not being fully implemented in neither the personal status related laws or civil laws. However, Lebanon has reservations towards key articles of the Convention which result in that the full potential of the Convention is not maintained. / Rättslig pluralism innebär att en stat har fler än ett rättssystem och att rättigheter tillämpas av statliga och privata aktörer. Libanon har genom konstitutionen etablerat religiös familjerätt som innebär att medborgare tillskrivs olika rättigheter efter trosbekännelse vilket särskilt påverkar kvinnor rättsliga ställning. I denna studie undersöks hur rättslig pluralism kan förstås ur ett genusrättsvetenskapligt perspektiv samt hur det påverkar kvinnors rättsliga ställning i Libanon. Studien undersöker även hur Libanon, med den nuvarande konstitutionen, kan uppfylla de internationella förpliktelser som följer av konventionen om avskaffande av alla former av diskriminering mot kvinnor (CEDAW). Genom rättsdogmatisk metod, genusrättsvetenskap samt semi-strukturerade intervjuer med civilsamhället, akademiker samt rättstillämpare i Beirut, har gällande rätt i Libanon analyseras utifrån begreppen genus, manlig dominans och privat och offentlig sfär för att visualisera förhållandet mellan kön och dess betydelse i det libanesiska rättssystemet. Resultaten visar att rättslig pluralism i Libanon kan förstås i förhållande till landets komplexa historia som har påverkat bildandet av det rättsliga systemet där en manlig norm präglar konstitutionen, familjerätten och civilrättsliga lagar vilket skapar könssegregering i samhället. Utfallet påvisar att det råder motsättningar mellan konstitutionella rättigheter vilket påverkar att kvinnors rättsliga ställning främst behandlas inom den privata sfären och blir undantaget som rättighetsinnehavare. I det dagliga samhället underordnas kvinnors rättsliga ställning avseende äktenskapet och dess upplösning, vårdnad av barn och nationalitet, i förhållande till den rättsliga ställning som män innehar. Avseende folkrättsliga förpliktelser visar studien att den nuvarande konstitutionen ger utrymme att uppfylla CEDAW. Dock följer av gällande rätt och Libanons reservationer mot centrala artiklar i konventionen hinder vilka innebär att konventionen inte upprätthålls.

En 2012, un couple de Libanais a été autorisée pour la première fois à conclure un mariage civil sur le sol libanais. Bénéficiant d'un fort soutien de la société civile, Nidal Darwiche et Kholoud Sukkarieh, nés respectivement chiite et sunnite, se sont appuyés sur différents textes législatifs et constitutionnels libanais pour remettre en question le système en vigueur en matière du statut personnel. Le droit de la famille libanais se caractérise en effet par un pluralisme judiciaire et législatif, accompagné de la personnalité des lois. Le mariage y est soumis, tant dans la forme que dans le fond, au droit religieux de la communauté de l'époux et aucune législation ne prévoit la possibilité de célébration d'un mariage civil. Les époux désireux d'échapper à l'application de la loi religieuse d'une des dix-huit communautés n'avaient d'autre possibilité, jusque-là, que de se rendre à l'étranger- le plus souvent à Chypre - pour y conclure un mariage civil parfaitement reconnu et enregistré ensuite au Liban. Quels procédés juridiques ont été mis en avant afin d'aboutir à la conclusion de ce mariage ? Comment cette« révolution juridique» a-t-elle été accueillie par les différentes autorités religieuses ? Quelle a été la position de la jurisprudence ? Cette avancée ouvre-t-elle la voie vers l'adoption d'une loi civile libanaise du statut personnel ? La laïcité intégrale peut-elle être adoptée dans le contexte libanais ? La présente thèse porte sur la relation entre la religion et le statut personnel au Liban à travers l'étude de la célébration de mariage. Elle étudie dans un premier temps l'évolution historique qui a conduit à la consolidation du régime de la personnalité des lois religieuses en matière de statut personnel avant d'analyser les réponses offertes pour surmonter ce pluralisme judiciaire et législatif et de conclure sur la portée juridico-sociale du premier mariage civil conclu à l'intérieur des frontières libanaises. / In 2012, a Lebanese couple was authorized to form a civil union for the first time on the Lebanese soil. Receiving great support from the civil society, Nidal Darwiche and Kholoud Sukkarieh, born Shia and Sunni respectively, relied on legislative and constitutional regulations in Lebanese law and questioned, as a consequence, the system that's currently in effect in the personal status field. As a matter of fact, family law in Lebanon is characterized by judicial and legislative pluralism that comes along with personality of laws system. Marriage, in particular, is dominated, whether it comes to its procedure or its content by the religious factor and obeys most of the time to the husband's religious law. There is no specific regulation that takes into consideration the possibility of a civil marriage taking place in Lebanon. Those who want to avoid the 18 different personal status laws in reference to the 18 religious sects that exist, are forced to travel abroad- mainly to Cyprus - in order to civilly tie the knot, a perfectly recognized and registered union in Lebanon. What are the legal methods highlighted that have led to the materialization of this civil marriage? How was this legal revolution welcomed by the religious authorities? What was the jurisprudence's position? Does this progress open the gate towards the adoption of a Lebanese civil persona! status law? Could full secularism be established in Lebanon? This dissertation examines the link between religion and persona! status in Lebanon through marriage's study. It studies first of all the historical social evolution that led to the consolidation of personality of laws system in the personal status field, it observes afterwards complications and solutions to overcome judicial and legislative pluralism, and it ends with the case study and the impacts of the first Lebanese civil marriage.

THIS THESIS IS IN THE EXAMINATION PROCESS Christian Frederik Louis Leipoldt was born in on 28 December 1880 in the Rhenish House in Worcester, Cape Province, the fourth child of the Reverend Christian Friedrich Leipoldt and Anna Meta Christina Leipoldt (born Esselen). His father left the mission field to take up the position of the dominee in the Dutch Reformed Church in Clanwilliam where the Leipoldt family went to live, from 1884. Leipoldt received his education from his father at home, on a broad range of subjects, including several languages and also in the natural sciences. He became interested in writing from a very young age and sent pieces of his writing for publication when still a boy. When he was fifteen he began sending dried plant specimens to Professor McOwan in Cape Town, from Clanwilliam. It was through his interest in botany that Leipoldt met Dr Harry Bolus, a life-long friend. Leipoldt wrote the Civil Service examinations in 1897 after which he went to Cape Town to work as a journalist. Living in Cape Town he served on the staff of the pro-Boer newspaper, The South African News from 1898 until it was closed down by the British authorities in 1902, when he travelled to Britain to look for work as a journalist in London. Soon after arriving there he took up the offer from Bolus who would lend him money to study medicine at Guy’s Hospital. It was more or less at this time that some of his early literature on the South African War was written, for instance, his well-known poem, Oom Gert Vertel (published in 1911). After successfully obtaining his MRCS medical qualification in 1907, winning gold medals for medicine and surgery in the process, he briefly served as Acting House Surgeon at Guy’s until 1908 when he travelled to Europe to work in a number of hospitals to receive further training. Later the same year he took up a post as medical adviser to J D Pulitzer, the American newspaper owner. Thereafter he worked as a doctor in London except for the time he proceeded on a four month visit to the East in 1912, the experience of which he penned in a manuscript entitled ‘Visit to the East Indies.’In 1914 he returned to South Africa to take up a post as Medical Inspector of Schools with the Transvaal Education Department. During the First World War in South Africa, he was drafted into the army as the personal medical doctor to the Prime Minister at the time, Genl Louis Botha. He resigned from his post as Medical Inspector in 1923 to take up an offer from Dr F V Engelenburg to serve on the editorial staff of the pro-Smuts newspaper De Volkstem,. He worked there until 1925 when he and the newly appointed editor Gustav Preller did not see eye to eye and it was then that he decided to return to Cape Town. His second Cape Town period (1925 – 1947) was characterized by the most prolific writing, during which he published a great many works across a broad range of topics. Furthermore, though he never married, he adopted Jeffrey Leipoldt, and took in a number of boys as boarders in his home ‘Arbury’ in Kenilworth, Cape Town. At the same time as he wrote most prolifically for a wide range of publications including many novels, he taught pediatrics at the University of Cape Town Medical School and practised as a pediatrician in the city. C Louis Leipoldt was a versatile person who published across a wide range of fields, to include literature, medical studies, letters to friends and associates, the history of wine and cookery, and what few seem to be aware of, his three English historical novels that make up The Valley, written in English between 1928 and 1932. Whilst Leipoldt’s early work such as Oom Gert Vertel gave voice to the suffering of the Afrikaner people, in The Valley, his voice is one of protest against the isolationist policies of the National Party of the 1920s.</p/> Whilst Leipoldt will be known for his work as the inaugural medical inspector of schools of the Transvaal Education Department, the inaugural lecturer in pediatrics at the University of Cape Town and Cape Town’s first practising pediatrician, he will also be known for his wide oeuvre as a writer. For example, he served as the Medical Association of South Africa’s first editor of its South African Medical Journal, a post he held for 18 years. Leipoldt never married and died on 13 April 1947 in Cape Town. His ashes were scattered in the Pakhuis Pass near Clanwilliam, where there is a memorial to his life. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Historical and Heritage Studies / unrestricted

The purpose of this master thesis is to analyze movements and changes on the Slovak political scene, Slovak party system as well as increase of support for antisystem and populist parties. The master thesis devotes its attention to individual governments, their characteristics and electoral support to relevant parties. The work is intended to answer the question whether the party system has changed over the period under review and in what way, and if the antisystemic parties and the phenomenon of populism have grown in the last six years. The theoretical concepts of Giovanni Sartori's party systems, the antisystemic parties from Sartori and Giovanni Capoccia and populism from Franciso Panizza, Cas Mudde, Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and Chantal Mouffe are used to examine the dynamics of the Slovak political scene in order to answer the above questions. Keywords elections, political parties, party system, moderate pluralism, polarized pluralism, antisystem parties, protest parties, populism

The purpose of this master thesis is to analyze movements and changes on the Slovak political scene, Slovak party system as well as increase of support for antisystem and populist parties. The master thesis devotes its attention to individual governments, their characteristics and electoral support to relevant parties. The work is intended to answer the question whether the party system has changed over the period under review and in what way, and if the antisystemic parties and the phenomenon of populism have grown in the last six years. The theoretical concepts of Giovanni Sartori's party systems, the antisystemic parties from Sartori and Giovanni Capoccia and populism from Franciso Panizza, Cas Mudde, Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and Chantal Mouffe are used to examine the dynamics of the Slovak political scene in order to answer the above questions. Keywords elections, political parties, party system, moderate pluralism, polarized pluralism, antisystem parties, protest parties, populism

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The discipline of International Relations is frequently depicted as an American dominated discipline. This disciplinary self-image has become so entrenched that it is rarely questioned and operates as a ‘quasi-fact’ within the field. However, the manner in which this widespread claim has been put forth is largely speculative. There is a surprising lack of data verifying the prominent notion, and indeed the ‘evidence’ that does exist is largely out-dated and methodologically problematic. As such, this thesis attempts to remedy this dearth of data by systematically investigating if and how the United States dominates the discipline of IR. Rather than speaking of a generic and ambiguous form of dominance this thesis begins by disaggregating the concept of dominance and stating the ways in which an actor can potentially dominate and how this can be measured. What this crucially means is that the US may dominate in some ways and not others. Through exploring twelve of discipline’s international journals over a ten-year period from 1999-2009, and four international conferences from 2005-2011 it becomes clear that the central issue is not whether the United States dominates the discipline but the degree and manner in which it does. Through demonstrating the numerous current trends and inclinations in the discipline a complex image of the IR emerges; an image that challenges a number of prevalent assertions about the disciplinary character of IR. The findings presented illustrate how the discipline of IR is more international and more diverse than is commonly perceived, and yet how the discipline of IR still experiences certain forms of American dominance. This thesis aims to highlight the importance of perspective and consequently how we need to be more nuanced and reflective in the ways we characterize the discipline’s dominance claims. Overall this thesis aims to highlight the many dynamics occurring at different levels of the discipline, all of which shape the contours of the field and IR’s relationship with the American academy.