Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-86). / xi, 86 leaves, bound ill., maps 29 cm

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The 1984-85 miners’ strike dramatically changed the face of the South Wales Valleys. This dissertation will show that the women’s groups that played such a crucial supportive role in it were not the homogenous entity that has often been portrayed. They shared some comparable features with similar groups in English pit villages but there were also qualitative differences between the South Wales groups and their English counterparts and between the different Welsh groups themselves. There is evidence of tensions between the Welsh groups and disputes with the communities they were trying to assist, as well as clashes with local miners’ lodges and the South Wales NUM. At the same time women’s support groups, various in structure and purpose but united in the aim of supporting the miners, challenged and shifted the balance of established gender roles The miners’ strike evokes warm memories of communities bonding together to fight for their survival. This thesis investigates in detail the women involved in support groups to discover what impact their involvement made on their lives afterwards. Their role is contextualised by the long-standing tradition of Welsh women’s involvement in popular politics and industrial disputes; however, not all women discovered a new confidence arising from their involvement. But others did and for them this self-belief survived the strike and, in some cases, permanently altered their own lives. The activities of the women’s support groups confirmed changes in the social role of women that had been occurring since the 1960s in the coalfield communities of South Wales, and thereby contributed to a revision of the traditional notion of ‘communities’ which were changed by the very process of being defended.

xiv, 120 p. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / The purpose of this dissertation study is to explore and describe the development of political attitudes and behaviors in current undergraduate academic life. By undertaking this study, I sought to add to the understanding of student learning as it pertains to college student development through political involvement. I employed an embedded case study design comparing two groups of highly politically involved 18-24 year old college students at a large, public, urban university. Selective sampling resulted in the identification of two case study groups. One group (n=3) was highly politically involved in high school. The other group (n=3) became highly involved once in college. By selecting groups based upon high school political involvement, this study began to examine what experiences influence the development of this important college outcome. This study generates a conceptual model that combines Astin's (1970a) Theory of College Impact, Verba, Schlozman and Brady's (1995) Civic Voluntarism Model, CIRCLE's (2003) Index of Civic and Political Engagement. This model proposes that if students have available resources and something engages their interest in politics, experiences such as work, academic experiences, co-curricular involvement, service participation and church participation may be avenues for the development of both civic skills and social connections that lead to political involvement. For students in this age range, concurrent processes of cognitive development and socio-cultural identity development may also contribute to the development of political involvement. Political involvement can take the form of electoral and campaign behaviors, political voice activities and attentiveness to current issues and political news. Differences between the two groups studied yielded few findings all of which occurred in pre-college factors. Although the small sample size and the limitation of the study to a single institutions suggest the need for more research to confirm these findings, this study affirms the strong influence that intentional college experiences may have in developing positive political attitudes and behaviors. / Committee in charge: David Conley, Chairperson, Educational Leadership; Diane Dunlap, Member, Educational Leadership; Gerald Tindal, Member, Educational Leadership; Wesley Wilson, Outside Member, Economic

By pursuing private and collective political action in the nonmarket environment, businesses attempt to influence public policy that shapes their operating environment. This dissertation considers how a firm’s market-based experience and its accumulation of political resources affect how the firm combines private and collective political tactics. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) I investigate how a firm’s alliance experience, political resources and prior collective political experience influence the autonomy of its Corporate Political Activity (CPA). I use fixed effects GLS regression with clustered standard errors to test my model on a panel of 21,329 firm/year observations of 2,779 U.S. property casualty insurance companies over the ten-year period between 2005 and 2014. I find support for the influence of state-level political resources, equity alliances, and the interaction of prior collective CPA experience with regulatory complexity and learning capacity on autonomy. My findings contribute to the growing literature connecting market and non-market strategies by linking collaboration in the political arena to the related market activity of alliance experience. Findings also contribute to our understanding of how participation in a collective provides opportunities for learning, and reveals that taking advantage of this opportunity depends on a firm’s learning capacity and the complexity of its regulatory environment. These findings add insight to the literatures on CPA, inter-organizational learning, collective action and trade associations.

M.A. (Political Studies) / This dissertation investigates theoretical aspects of the mobilisational strategies of the African National Congress and its surrogate organisations within the context of the development of their strategic doctrine and utilises the townships of Port Alfred and Cradock as examples. The study focuses on the mechanisms utilised by the African National Congress to mobilise support for its programme during the period 1980-1988. This thesis argues that the activities and actions of the ANC which took place in certain select areas in the Eastern Cape Region of the Republic of South Africa can be correctly described as a People's War insurgency. It examines the concept of People's War within the context of revolutionary warfare or insurgency and identifies the essential characteristics of this doctrine. It then examines the development of the military doctrine of the African National Congress and traces the various strategic influences which have shaped ANC military thinking. It counterpoises the development of ANC People's War doctrines against the model of People's War as formulated by Mao and the Vietnamese theorists. The ANC's People's War doctrine is examined within the context of the various mobilisational, military and organisational mechanisms employed in the townships. These are in turn examined within the framework of the specific township examples selected in the Eastern Cape region. The military dimension of ANC People's War strategy is explained and the reasons for its failure examined. The counter-strategy of the RSA Government is also briefly examined. Conclusions about the changing face of ANC strategy are drawn in the final chapter and the various hypothesis propounded in this dissertation are concluded

Although the graying of the American society has been well documented, the question as to whether the elderly populace will indeed become a political factor has yet to be determined. Some studies indicate that the elderly will soon develop the consensus needed for political action; other studies counter that the elderly will never be a viable political factor. Among the determinants listed as influencing the political participation equation are standard socioeconomic variables (e.g., race, social status, education, and income). These factors have been studied extensively (Campbell 1960; Key 1950; Milbrath 1965; Nagel 1987; Rose 1965). Trela recently added an item that could possibly influence the political activism of the elderly: membership in age-graded associations. This study addresses the questions raised by Trela (1971), namely, whether age-graded associations influence the political activity of senior citizens, and if so, in what direction elderly participation is swayed. Unlike previous reports, the preliminary data gathered for this study suggest that the age-graded associations of the elderly cannot accurately predict their political activism.