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This thesis focuses on the role the police have played in Taiwan¡¦s political institutions from 1949 to 2005. This thesis will attempt to cover three main areas. The first is to understand the transformation Taiwan¡¦s politics went through going from an authoritarian regime through a period of transition and then on to democracy. The second is, to study the development of the police in different political institutions. The final is to analyze and compare the role of the police and their importance and influence during different periods. Documents studied while researching this thesis include both those that focused on the political change in Taiwan and also the development of police institutions. Documents dealing with the role of police, specialized writings, periodicals, thesis and other documents were also reviewed. In addition, by using a historical research approach and systematic theory, documents were thus analyzed and research compared to survey the political change and the development of police institutions. Furthermore, the effects on political institutions and police institutions at different periods were considered deeply in order to provide a realistic report of the role the police had. This thesis can be divided into two parts. The first is about political change in Taiwan, reviewing and understanding the domestic and international factors which affected Taiwan generally. The second part is about the development of police institutions. This includes the course of change and development, equipment, education and training, maintaining of political power, maintaining order, social service, and the transition from authoritarian rule. The police role would be changed by different dominating factors, for instance, maintaining political power, maintaining social order and carrying out public service. In conclusion, political institutions would be affected by both domestic and international factors. The nature of the police role was to carry out social control, but because the police were part of the political system, therefore, the role would also be affected by political institutions.

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The changing role of Ethnic Chinese in Malaysia

In this thesis I contribute to arguments showing how the human body is much more than a vessel that enables us to experience the world through our senses. Our sense of embodiment and our embodied performances give meaning to and shape the world in which we live. I argue that our bodies are crucial to socio-political change and subverting discriminatory cultural assumptions and ideologies. Deviant performances can cause us to be less than intelligible individuals. That is, according to Judith Butler, we become less than intelligible when we do not perform in such a way that meets certain cultural expectations. Dominant expectations are typically implicitly understood to be common-sense values. Unfortunately, many of our implicit values have embedded unjust prejudices that directly affect our thinking and behaviour. These discriminatory implicit values are couched in “the background.” Alexis Shotwell’s expansion of what John R. Searle terms “the background” is particularly useful to understand the political nature of implicitly held beliefs. These discriminatory assumptions couched in the background systematically oppress us. However, the prejudices of the background can be exposed through repeatedly performing our bodies in certain ways. Additionally, our performances can enable us to pool our intellectual resources together and live out the socio-political change we desire. In doing so, performances and identities that were once considered unintelligible can become intelligible and can alter cultural climates. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2012-10-09 13:54:49.323

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Utilising a historical perspective and drawing upon path dependence theory, the thesis focuses on the question of a political union of Canada’s three Maritime provinces - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island - between 1960 and 1980. Drawing on archival sources and interviews the thesis examines the factors which increased the potential for a union and resulted in a political union not occurring in this period. The thesis reveals how the intensification of Quebec separatism throughout the 1960s and 1970s threatened to separate the region geographically from the rest of the country. It also shows that the regional expansionist agenda of the federal government undermined provincial jurisdiction as it sought to eliminate economic underdevelopment in the Maritime region. These factors coupled with the dynamics of province-building and the political ambition of key political leaders in the Maritimes created the impetus for a political union in the 1960s. The thesis pays particular attention to the Maritime Union Study (MUS), established in 1968 by the Maritime premiers to investigate the union question. The thesis argues that the MUS was a critical juncture because it presented the premiers with a number of alternative choices for political change, including its main recommendation: the establishment of a political union. However, the thesis reveals that upon the publication of the final report of the MUS in November 1970, the ramifications of the 1970 October Crisis in Quebec and the recent election of new premiers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick reconfigured the national and regional contexts in which a political union was considered. This reconfiguration led to a new form of institutionalised intergovernmental relations called the Council of Maritime Premiers (CMP). The CMP was a confederal structure which respected the provincially-focused decision-making capacity of the Maritime premiers. The key conclusion of the thesis is that engagement with the question of a political union reflected a balance between political environment and political agency. The national political environment encouraged the consideration of a political union because it revealed a vulnerability to external occurrences which were beyond the control of the three provinces and connected with an internal logic for change. A political union was seen as a way for the region to develop the capacity to become economically self-sufficient and in turn neutralise the implications of unexpected externalities. However, alternative opportunities for political action were pursued when the national political environment became reconfigured and new political leaders were elected. This dynamic explains why, despite a critical juncture, a union did not happen. As such, the thesis shows that the current understanding of change to path dependent settings is confirmed. Established trajectories will be more inclined towards persistence than change. The key contribution of the thesis to path dependence theory is that change is not the default outcome of a critical juncture. If change is viable, considered but not ultimately selected it is no less a critical juncture than those which produce enduring change. On a broader level, the thesis gives an indication as to the difficulty of political amalgamations between constitutionally protected entities within established federal states.

This master thesis is an attempt to illustrate the role of a feminist and abolitionist organization towards the enhancement of women’s social conditions and their representation in society. The study is based on my three months training at an Icelandic organization, Stígamót, which is an “Education and Counselling Centre for Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Violence”. My stay there included a series of interviews with social workers and survivors of prostitution and sexual trafficking.  The centre has a multi-faceted approach, using feminist empowerment as a methodological process for the purpose of increasing the quality of life. Together with feminist theories on intersectionality and empowerment as methodological tools, I am researching the relations between survivors’ empowerment, their agency, with a radical political change, leading to gender-equal society.