This paper examines the relationship between Fulgencio Batista and the Communist Party of Cuba. At odds during the first several years of Batista's rule, when strikes and repression were the topics of the day, the two sides eventually saw in each other a means to an end. In efforts to understand the Cuban Revolution of the late 1950's, historians often portray Batista as a dictatorial puppet of American business and policy. Contrary to this image, in his first regime (1934 until 1944), Batista presided over the creation of a nominal constitutional democracy. To do this he needed the support and good conduct of organized labor, in which the Communists could be a powerful force. In 1935 the Communist Party International, based in Moscow, adopted a shift in tactics. So as to combat fascism, the Party turned away from its traditionally isolationist line. It sought to make alliances with like-minded groups and wanted to serve in the government. In mid-1938 an agreement was reached between Batista and Party heads from which sprang a mutually beneficial alliance lasting through the first batistato. The relationship is often overlooked in Cuban historiography and many questions remain.To truly understand its significance we need more information as to origins, conditions, and consequences of the agreements. This paper explores the conditions on both sides, seeking to understand how and why the unlikely bedfellows came together. As well, it traces the relationship until the end of Batista's term in 1944, focusing on the ebb and flow of support concerning major issues of the day, such as organized labor, the constitutional assembly, the election of 1940, and involvement in World War II. Finally, this study shows how the alliance with the Communist Party is a necessary point in a full understanding of Fulgencio Batista and the era.

Today’s Chinese ethno-nationalism exploits nativist ancestral claims back to antiquity to legitimize its geo-political occupation of the entire territory of modern China, which includes areas where many non-Han people live. It also insists on the inseparability of the non-Han nationalities as an integrated part of Zhonghua minzu. This dissertation traces the origin of this nationalism to the two major waves of scientific investigation in the fields of paleoanthropology and anthropology in the Chinese frontier during the first half of the twentieth century. Prevailing theories and discoveries in the two scientific disciplines inspired the ways in which the Chinese intellectuals constructed their national identity. The first wave concerns the international quest for human ancestors in North China and the northwestern frontier in the 1920s and 1930s. Foreign scientists, such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Amadeus Grabau, Roy Chapman Andrews, and Davidson Black, came to China to search for the first human fossils. With the discovery of Peking Man, they made Beijing one of the most prestigious places for the study of human paleontology and popularized the evolutionary Asiacentric theory that designated Chinese Central Asia and Mongolia as the cradle of humans. Inspired by the theory and the study of the Peking Man fossils, Chinese intellectuals turned Peking Man into the first Chinese and a common ancestor of all humans. In the second wave, from the late 1930s to the early 1950s, Chinese anthropologists like Rui Yifu, Cen Jiawu, Fei Xiaotong, and Li Anzhai made enormous efforts to inscribe the non-Han people of the southwestern frontier into the genealogy of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu). Their interpretations of the relationship between the Han and the non-Han and between the frontier and the center were influenced by various Western anthropological theories. However, their intensive studies of the southwestern non-Han societies advocated the ethnic integration and nationalization of China’s southwestern frontier. By linking the two waves of scientific endeavor, this dissertation asserts that the Chinese intellectual construction of modern Chinese ethnogenesis and nationalism was not a parochial and reactionary nationalist “invention” but a series of indigenizing attempts to appropriate and interpret scientific theories and discoveries. / History

The history of football clubs in Turkey is entwined with the political and economic development of Turkey in the twentieth century. This thesis focuses on the history of soccer clubs and the close involvement of the sport with the formation of modern Turkish identity during the late Ottoman period, the early republican period, the multi-party period, and finally the Cold War era. As this study also argues, in addition to their role in identity formation, football clubs were the building blocks of associational life in Turkish democracy and thus represent a major force in the process of democratic deepening in the country. The thesis addresses both the complex political functions and uses of soccer clubs and their economic relationship to the development of Turkish business. Through the twentieth century, the politics behind soccer clubs evolved from an affirmation of national identity to a reassertion of local identity as a challenge to the centralized state system. Increased localization—as evidenced by the rising fortunes of soccer clubs and businesses from Central Anatolia, Turkey’s Muslim heartland—also indicates the increased Islamicization of Turkish society accompanying the advent of the AKP (Justice and Development Party). The changing character of Turkish society and the challenge to traditional secular elites by a rising class of Islamic businessmen from outside of the metropolitan areas—developing businesses concentrated mainly in Central Anatolia—are presented through an analysis of Parliamentary election results since 1962 along with the concurrent change in the geographical transformation of the landscape of Turkish soccer through this period. The study examines the complex, multifaceted interrelationships and lines of mutual determinations between the changing conceptions of Turkish identity, democratic deepening, Islamicization, and the economic development of modern Turkey. This thesis demonstrates how these forces that shape social, political, and economic life are played out on the soccer field. / text

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The relationship between politics and ontology has long been a troubled one for geography. More recently, the emergence of affect theory has complicated things even further by introducing a new set of frequently vague concepts into the already cluttered theoretical field of critical geography. This dissertation collects six articles that endeavor to develop the groundwork for establishing a continuum between affect, politics, and ontology. Specifically, it argues that not only is affect a politically rich area for approaching ontology, but, further, it is particularly well suited for addressing difference and radical politics. It proceeds by developing a series of concepts that animate a politically driven ontology of difference, namely: A) becoming and bordering in the context of border studies; B) a flat ontology as a fix for the debilitating transcendence of scale theory; C) an animation of a Nollywood as a 'site' based upon the flat ontological critique of scale; D) a politics of confusion that isolates the workings of affect in relation to the State and in direct action; E) a psycho-pragmatism that checks studies of affect and nonrepresentational theory against the analytic determinism that attends their developing methodologies; and F) the notions of fidelity and affinity as they get articulated through to the State and political subjectivity.

The 2010 freshman class bears an uncanny resemble to their idealistic counterparts from 1994. Their campaign rhetoric, motivations and beliefs are almost interchangeable. The triumphs and especially frustrations and failures of their first terms also bear stark similarities. Most critically, the freshmen's conservative agenda suffered a disappointing electoral rebuke in their first elections as incumbents. Both the 1996 and 2012 presidential year congressional elections halted the respective momentum of the Republican Revolution and the Tea Party. The lessons of the 104th Congress offer many lessons to the freshmen of the 112th, namely that ideological "revolutions" in America (in this case, those of a conservative nature) struggle to deal with the challenges of governing. This thesis will examine and compare the rhetoric and motivations of the freshmen during their initial campaigns, and the triumphs and tribulations of their first terms in a city that is resistant to sudden and sweeping changes. The title of this work, "Taking Back America," reflects the sense of urgency and gravitas that spiritually united both classes of freshmen. The personal observations recorded in Linda Killian‘s The Freshman (1998) and Robert Draper‘s When the Tea Party Came to Town (2012) form the foundation of this examination, which focuses entirely on the U.S. House of Representatives.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Minorities have gained more civil rights with the cooperation of both major political parties in the United States, yet the actions of the Republican Party are often conflated with racism. This is partially the result of clashes in ideological visions, which explain the different political positions of partisans. However, during his 1980 run for the White House, a concerted effort was made to tie Ronald Reagan to racism, as he was accused of pandering to white Southerners. Therefore, this thesis also focuses on “Southern strategies” used by both the Republican and Democratic parties to exploit race, which have spilled into the new millennium.

This thesis examines the extent to which George Washington may have intentionally modeled himself upon Cato the Younger, the Roman senator who famously resisted tyranny during the decline of the Roman Republic. Having seen a rendition of Joseph Addison's Cato as a young man and quoting the play throughout his life, Washington was profoundly impacted by the performance and bore many resemblances to the play's protagonist. Though scholars often paint Washington as a near reincarnation of Cato, I will provide both an interpretation of Addison's Cato and evaluate Washington and Cato int their respective historical contexts in order to ultimately conclude that Washington was much more of a reasonable, practical politician than his Roman counterpart.