This study attempt to find in swift's Gulliver's Travels some constructive ideas which were far in advance of his time. This thesis elaborated on contemporary ideas of education, birth control, and government in order to show how much the present age has thought and written about these subjects, and to throw on this background Swift's thoughts, which are not elaborated.

Early modern Poland-Lithuania figured significantly in the political perceptions of Europeans in the long seventeenth century – not only due to its considerable size and enormous commercial and military resources, but also, and just as importantly, due to its exceptional religious and political situation. This interest in Poland-Lithuania was shared by many Britons. However, a detailed examination of how Britons perceived Poland-Lithuania at that time and how they treated Poland-Lithuania in their political debates has never been undertaken. This thesis utilises a wide range of the previously neglected source material and considers the patterns of transmission of information to determine Britons' awareness of Poland-Lithuania and their employment of the Polish-Lithuanian example in the British political discourse during the seventeenth century. It looks at a variety of geographical and historical information, English and Latin descriptions of Poland-Lithuania's physical topography and boundaries, and its ethnic and cultural make-up presented in histories, atlases and maps, to establish what, where and who Poland-Lithuania was for Britons. Poland-Lithuania's political framework, with its composite structure and unique relationship between the crown and nobility, elicited a spectrum of reactions, and so this thesis evaluates the role that both criticism and praise of Poland-Lithuania played in British constitutional debates. Consequently, the study argues that Britons' perceptions of Poland-Lithuania were characterised by great plasticity. It claims that Britons' impressions of the country were shaped by multiple – real or imagined - borders, whether cultural, economic or political, but also that Britons were affected by the exposure to a uniform, idealised historiography of this country. Crucially, the thesis asserts that references to Poland-Lithuania constituted an ingenious ideological and polemical device that was eagerly used throughout the period by Britons of diverse political sympathies. Moreover, through the examination of the kingdom's geopolitical role, particularly its fluctuating position as a “bulwark of Christendom”, side by side its engagement against Protestants, the thesis challenges the assumption that anti-Catholicism dominated seventeenth-century British perceptions of the world.

Pas de résumé / No abstract

<p>The objective of this essay is to approach a larger comprehension of the drama of George Bernard Shaw. The essay studies the combination of ideas and aesthetics in the play Mrs Warren’s Profession; how theatrical and mainly literary aesthetics interplay with political ideas and what the consequence of this combination is. The study illustrates that the dramatic method consists of using ideas as effective theatrical tools to move the reader/viewer by thought and not by sentiment. The study also illustrates that a key to understanding Shaw’s drama can be found in the construction of operas and symphonies; musical theoretic constructions are an integrated dramatic technique in Mrs Warren’s Profession. The study shows that it is a play with a political and social purpose; to raise awareness of the mechanisms of prostitution. The play does not use simplifications in terms of good and evil. It questions conventionality, unveils social hypocrisy and attempts to disillusion the reader/viewer. The antithesis between realism and idealism is an important source of dynamics and constitutes one of the principal aesthetical constructions.</p>

The objective of this essay is to approach a larger comprehension of the drama of George Bernard Shaw. The essay studies the combination of ideas and aesthetics in the play Mrs Warren’s Profession; how theatrical and mainly literary aesthetics interplay with political ideas and what the consequence of this combination is. The study illustrates that the dramatic method consists of using ideas as effective theatrical tools to move the reader/viewer by thought and not by sentiment. The study also illustrates that a key to understanding Shaw’s drama can be found in the construction of operas and symphonies; musical theoretic constructions are an integrated dramatic technique in Mrs Warren’s Profession. The study shows that it is a play with a political and social purpose; to raise awareness of the mechanisms of prostitution. The play does not use simplifications in terms of good and evil. It questions conventionality, unveils social hypocrisy and attempts to disillusion the reader/viewer. The antithesis between realism and idealism is an important source of dynamics and constitutes one of the principal aesthetical constructions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of fear in oral political communication. For the study, speeches held during the political event Almedalsveckan 2017, by representatives from three Swedish political parties, are analyzed. The authors are using the following questions to carry out the analysis; ¤ Are elements of fear expressed in the speeches and to which extent? ¤ In which ways are fear used in the speeches? ¤ Are there any political questions for which all party representatives express fear? Former studies have suggested that politicians in some ways are driven by fear and that fear is a fertile ground for building politics upon. The method used for the analysis is an ideal analysis which includes the use of abstract and concrete dimensions of fear as the analytical instrument. Results of the study shows that the speeches do include expressions of both concrete and abstract fear, to a varying extent. Vio-lence, threats, extremism and social disruption are elements of fear which are expressed by all representatives.

Cette thèse sur la fin de l’Ancien Régime s’ étend de 148 à 1791. Ce travail de recherche est une exploration de la figure judiciaire et de ses représentations savantes et populaires sur la période donnée. Ainsi Les philosophes du XVIIIème siècle contribue largement grâce à leurs théories politiques à un renouveau théorique des représentations judiciaires. Ce renouveau s’accompagne également d’une fécondité littéraire dans le genre utopique. Ceci est bien la preuve que la question pénale est une question politique à la veille de la Révolution Française. Ce travail de renouveau judiciaire se poursuit avec l’Assemblée Nationale Constituante entre 1789 et 1791. Il se poursuit sous un angle pratique. C’est probablement ici que se situe la rupture entre les députés constituants et les philosophes des Lumières. Les premiers vont mettre en place un système judiciaire où seule la logique existe. Ce système est motivé par une haine du juge pénal du XVIIIème siècle. Les second, les philosophes, critiquaient le juge dans un souci d’exigence de liberté. Ils sont à ce titre le prolongement de l’humanisme et les précurseurs du libéralisme. / This thesis on the end of the Ancien Régime extends from 1748 to 1791. This research work is an exploration of the judicial figure and its scholarly and popular representations on the given period. Thus the philosophers of the eighteenth century contributes largely through their political theories to a theoretical renewal of judicial representations. This renewal is also accompanied by literary fecundity in the utopian genre. This is proof that the criminal question is a political question on the eve of the French Revolution.This work of judicial renewal continues with the National Constituent Assembly between 1789 and 1791. It continues in a practical angle. It is probably here that lies the break between the constituent deputies and the Enlightenment philosophers. The former will put in place a judicial system where only logic exists. This system is motivated by a hatred of the 18th century criminal court. The second, the philosophers, criticized the judge for the sake of the need for freedom. They are in this respect the extension of humanism and the precursors of liberalism.

Although Zosimus is recognised as a generally servile epitomator, it has in the past been customary to regard his statements about the baneful influence of Christianity upon the Empire's fortunes as representing his own considered opinions. This dissertation attempts to show that Zosimus copied these ideas directly from his main source, Eunapius, modifying them only in very minor ways. The first chapter consists in a detailed comparison of the remaining fragments of Eunapius' History with Zosimus. It is shown that in many places Zosimus made only very slight changes in his epitome which were due to the need to condense his source or to his own very different taste in style. He was prone to abridge or omit especially rhetorical or reflective passages and those involving character portrayal. Some minor interpolations he introduced were due either to ignorance on his part or to a consciousness of the changes which the Empire had undergone since the time when his source wrote. The chapter concludes with a study of passages which seem to indicate a major divergence from Eunapius. All of these, it is suggested, conform to the types indicated earlier in the chapter. This part of the study then confirms the impression that Zosimus departed but little, and that rarely enough, from his source. Chapter two carries the study to parts of Zosimus' work for which there are no remains of Eunapius. Although Zosimus' carelessness and incompetence are abundantly revealed some evidence is produced of a crude attempt on Zosimus' part, from time to time, to dramatise, or rather to heighten the drama of, material taken from Eunapius. Attention is drawn to some passages, notably those on the mime and on the auri lustralis collatio, which have been seen as Zosimus' own contributions to his work, but which on closer investigation seem also to have been copied from Eunapius. In this chapter also the evidence for other sources within the part of the New History that was taken from Eunapius is reviewed and dismissed. The decline of the Roman Empire is the subject of the third chapter. The various elements in Zosimus' "theory"-the decline of the cities, the rise of Christianity, the abandonment of paganism--are shown to be present in the works of Eunapius and to a lesser extent Olympiodorus. Moreover two of the cardinal passages in Zosimus' work--the digressions on Palmyra and on the Secular Games--are shown to have probably been taken also from Eunapius. This is not to deny Zosimus all originality as in his proem he emphasises the idea of decline in a way that Eunapius did not do. Moreover his work belongs more to the genre of "world history" like those of the Christian chroniclers rather than of "secular history" like his models Eunapius and Olympiodorus. Nevertheless it seems that he took from Eunapius with minimal modifications the religious and political ideas which give distinction to an otherwise insipid piece of work. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The aim of the dissertation is to analyze the political conceptions of the monthly "Kultura" in the period since its creation until 1980. The magazine, which started coming out in 1947 in Italy, was created by expatriate Poles, who after the Yalta Agreements chose to stay in the West. The editorial board soon moved to France where on the outskirts of Paris in the small town of Maisons-Laffitte the monthly journal has been edited ever since. Thanks to the original profile of the magazine and its political philosophy it has managed to group around itself numerous outstanding Polish writers and commentators, both those active in the emigré communities and those living in Poland. Also Western authors as well as writers and commentators from other countries in Central and Eastern Europe published their texts on the magazine's pages. In spite of "Kultura's" illustrious successes and unique accomplishments, earlier research on its history has not moved beyond its initial stage. In publications devoted to the phenomenon of "Kultura" we may encounter contradictory ideological qualifications and opinions on the magazine's political profile. This is a consequence of the fact that there is painful lack of source materials and dissertations analyzing the accomplishments of "Kultura" from a long term perspective. This dissertation aims to fill out this gap by analyzing a period of over thirty years in the history of the periodical. An attempt is made to divide this history into periods on the basis of ideological and political criteria. A further aim is to define the style of political thinking dominant in the materials published in the periodical and to characterize it against the background of earlier political debates in prewar Poland. The adopted diachronic perspective and the wide spectrum of analyzed phenomena provide the basis for an assessment of which conceptions and ideological elements and values were constantly present in the political platform of the editors and which made only a temporary appearance in connection with the political sympathies of the periodical or the changing circumstances on the world scene. It should be added that this is the first dissertation on the subject to cover truly comprehensive research material and to analyze the political trends in "Kultura" from a long-term perspective. The main thesis of the dissertation may be formulated as follows: "Kultura" succeeded in forging such conceptions and theories and in chosing such political options whose adequacy has found confirmation in the postwar developments both in Poland and on the international scene. This was possible, inter alia, because the magazine managed to rise above the limitations of traditional Polish ideological and political trends and worked out on its pages a new style of political thinking. "Kultura" is thus understood for the purposes of this dissertation as a periodical, a political centre and a school of political thought.

René Capitant (1901-1970), professeur de droit public, résistant, député et ministre gaulliste, lègue une œuvre constitutionnelle qui n’a jamais fait l’objet d’une analyse juridique exhaustive. Souvent critiques et parfois précurseurs, ses écrits doctrinaux et politiques présentent un intérêt qui réside autant dans les développements théoriques questionnant l’origine du droit positif à travers sa réception par les consciences individuelles que dans les aspects pratiques portant sur l’évolution des régimes français. Par une approche dynamique du droit constitutionnel où s’entremêlent histoire constitutionnelle, pratiques institutionnelles et doctrines philosophiques et politiques, le droit constitutionnel de René Capitant invite à dépasser les textes pour s’interroger sur la légitimité constitutionnelle de la démocratie française. / René Capitant (1901-1970) was professor of public law, involved in the Resistance movement during the Second World War, deputy, and Gaullist minister. He bequeaths a constitutional work that has never been subjected to exhaustive legal analysis. Often critical and sometimes precursor, his doctrinal and political writings are of interest as much in the theoretical developments questioning the origin of positive law through its reception by individual consciences as in the practical aspects of the evolution of French regimes. Through a dynamic approach to constitutional law in which constitutional history, institutional practices and philosophical and political doctrines intermingle, René Capitant's constitutional law invites us to go beyond the texts to question the constitutional legitimacy of French democracy.