Despite the broad discourse on fragile states and the threat they pose to the contemporary world order, the literature on the subject does to a large extent ignore the material factors behind the causes of state fragility. Scholars and organizations in the field have almost exclusively adopted the Social Contract Theory (SCT) in order to explain state fragility as a problem caused by social factors. This study broadens the discourse by applying SCT as well as the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) on the case study of Sudan, in order to do a deductive theory testing of the added value of each theory. The results of this study show that while the Social Contract Theory does explain many factors behind state fragility, the application of the Actor-Network Theory adds to this by also incorporating the networks between the social and material determinants in societies. This research contributes to the debate on fragile states by adding to the scarce research on the materiality of fragility through the use of the Actor-Network Theory. The positive results of this thesis encourage future use of this theory in the field as it has the potential to give new insights in how to deal with fragile states.

With the extant work on civil war duration as a starting point, this project uses the Ugandan case to identify and address theoretical aporias in our existing understanding of the determinants of duration. The vast majority of existing work begins with the assumption that the rebel force is the determining factor in the duration of conflict. Challenging this assumption, I argue that civil war duration should be understood as a function of the calculations made by both the rebel units and the established state, a dynamic that has implications for the way in which we think of the preferences of the state. Finally, that incentive structures exist, given the nature of post-colonial states that lower the utility of peace for elected leadership and reduce their willingness to provide peace as a collective good to the broader population as civil war can be used as one of Jeffrey Herbst’s buffer mechanisms.

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This thesis will try to combine shareholder ownership of a company with the notion of viewing thecompany as a social contract.Even if viewing the company as a social contract is usually considered to be part of the stakeholdertheory this view is not incompatible with the shareholder centred approaches.Through motivating the social contract view of businesses and discussion the advantages ofadopting a shareholder centred approach to company ownership this thesis will form the basis of asocial contract that would be agreed by the shareholders of the company. A part of this paper will also be dedicated to discussing how the shareholders could change the current companies to reflectmore closely on the contract they would initially have agreed on.

<p dir="ltr">I investigate how we can make the content of international instruments on human rights, such as covenants and treaties, frequently applicable in all contexts. Further, I argue that the problem of widespread implementation of human rights norms is two-fold insofar as it concerns (i) recognition of their content, which is often difficult due to cultural or political disputes, and/or (ii) the enforcement of related policies through administrative institutions. After laying out the scope of the project, I propose to use the causal and explanatory properties of social contract theory to elaborate on the relationship between informal (cultural) and formal (legal) norms of human rights. Indeed, I maintain an interpretation of this theory that combines its justificatory powers, like traditional contractarians, and its explanatory role, like contemporary contractarians have done, and I suggest that there is a third, namely, the causal role. From that conceptual framework, I show a successful case of implementation of human rights norms in Colombia, which was one of the countries participants of the Latin American wave of constitutionalism in the 1980s and 1990s. This intense period of constitutional changes in the region allowed for an openness towards international human rights norms in dialogue with national experiences and customs. The relevance of this case study is that it will help me identify lessons and strategies potentially applicable on a global scale. Indeed, I show how a reconsideration of the national political pact contained in political constitutions may be a successful strategy to strengthen the incorporation of human rights norms into the legal domestic sphere. The last part of the dissertation project surveys one possible external solution for the problem of implementation: military humanitarian interventions. I conclude that military interventions do not fit within the model of social contract theory and the justification of its employment in difficult cases may proceed only with certain conditions extracted from the contract.</p>

Research has established that national homeland security policy requires a whole community or all-of-nation approach to national security preparedness. What is less clear is whether all stakeholders are integrated into or benefit from this collective effort. This narrative policy analysis examined the relationship between a federally-recognized group of Native American tribal nations and homeland security national preparedness to explore whether tribal nations are effectively integrated with the collective effort for national preparedness. The theoretical framework stemmed from a convergence of social contract theory and conflict theory. Interviews (n = 21) were conducted with preparedness authorities from government agencies, and from tribal nations and nongovernmental organizations that advocate on behalf of tribal nations. Data were analyzed using Roe's narrative policy analysis technique. Results revealed areas of convergence of the government and tribal narratives on the historical disenfranchisement of tribal nations; findings also showed areas of divergence on how to better integrate tribal nations in homeland security national preparedness. The study concludes with a number of recommendations highlighting the manner in which national interests and tribal nation preparedness interests are intertwined. This study suggests that the nation's homeland security may be better served by greater inclusion of tribal nations in national preparedness efforts. The results of this study contribute to positive social change by giving voice to a heretofore disenfranchised social group, Native Americans, and by allowing them to strengthen the metanarrative of homeland security national preparedness.

[pt] A presente dissertação expressa e narra meu processo de compreensão do meu desejo de saber, suas impossibilidades, e as conexões entre poder e reivindicações à verdade nas narrativas e sujeitos autorizados por tais reivindicações. Eu escolhi particularmente o processo de formação do sujeito como compreendido pela teoria psicanalítica desenvolvida por Jacques Lacan – em seu “retorno a Freud” – e pela teoria contratualista como desenvolvida por Thomas Hobbes. Esse processo de formação do sujeito é um que eu entendo, como Judith Butler, como co-constitutivo e codependente com o poder que o forma numa relação em que não há emergência de um sujeito a não ser que autorizado por alguma instância de poder, ao mesmo tempo que não há poder senão como efeito sobre e através dos sujeitos a quem sujeita. O caminho em particular que eu consegui traçar em minha exploração, primeiro, foi entendendo um certo caráter ou papel estruturante da linguagem na teoria de ambos Lacan e Hobbes. Isso me permitiu dar um passo além, na análise de como o sujeito neurótico e o sujeito do contrato social emergem não só dos mesmos contextos, mas, sendo assim, talvez sejam um e o mesmo sujeito. Para, então, seguir o processo de formação do sujeito como colocada por Lacan até o mecanismo do Nome-do-Pai, procurando entender nossos investimentos políticos em uma certa forma paternalista de autoridade. No último e final passo deste processo ao invés de se fechar e confirmar-se a si mesma, eu busco partilhar uma crítica de um certo modelo heteronormativo e falocêntrico no qual muito da teoria psicanalítica está baseada, seus efeitos danosos nos mecanismos de exclusão e autorização de determinados sujeitos na nossa sociedade, baseados em uma diferenciação sexual. Eu emerjo desta dissertação não só mais capaz de engajar livros, autores e literaturas, mas compreendendo melhor e sendo mais atenta ao meu próprio desejo de saber e os mecanismos de exclusão vigentes no nosso mundo. / [en] This dissertation expresses and narrates my struggle to grapple with my own desire of knowing, its impossibility, and the connections between power and claims to truth in those – people and narratives – authorized by claims to know. I chose the particular process of subject formation as understood by the psychoanalytical theory developed by Jacques Lacan – in his return to Freud – and the social contract theory of Thomas Hobbes. This process of subject formation is one I understand, rooted in the thought of Judith Butler, as a co-constitutive and codependent relationship, where no subject can emerge unless subjected by power, and power can only exist as the effects of authorization of certain subjects. The particular path through which I have been able to do this has been through the exploration, first, of a certain structuring character language has both in lacanian psychoanalytical theory and in the hobbesian political treatise. This allowed me to take one step further into analyzing how the neurotic subject and the social contract subject emerge and understand them as one and the same. So then I could be able to follow Lacan s exploration of subject formation in the device of the Name-of-the-Father, hoping it would make me understand a particular investment of the social contract theory subject in paternal authority. I chose to close this dissertation, then, not confirming and reiterating the movement I have been able to find and develop, but with a critique of the heteronormative, phallocentric model in which much of psychoanalytical theory is rooted in, and its damaging effects on the mechanisms of exclusion and authorization of subjects in our society, as based on sexual difference. I have emerged from this dissertation not only smarter from the books I have read and literature I have engaged with, but wiser in my own inquiries and desire to have access and know how the world works.

This article traces different forms of the same present throughout several eras in American political and social history. I focus on two texts, John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, and Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, in order to examine slavery as a legal institution in the United States, and, in particular, the constitutionality of slavery. Rather than a massive contradiction, the Dred Scott decision is just another iteration of American political and racial philosophy as it was 100, even 200 years earlier. Taney’s opinion is a reflection of what the Lockean social contract came to look like in a racially hierarchized, colonial society. The Dred Scott decision paints one of the most accurate pictures of American political thought but is always written off as nothing but bad law. A close examination of race and social contract theory as they influenced the American Constitution gives insight into more productive ways to talk about race today.

The diploma thesis is focused on social contract theories, as presented by the philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. My research is based on Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, Second Treatise of Government by John Locke and Discourses and The Social Contract by Jean-Jacque Rousseau. In their respective theories, these authors present their opinions on how any state comes to life through entering into a social contract and how it should operate. The aim of my thesis is to look into their theories and using method of comparison to determine how they correspond with each other on the fundamental aspects of their ideas. These include the natural state, the act of entering into a social contract, the sovereign, sovereignty and the order of state establishment. The research suggests that although the authors agree on some points, in some cases they differ significantly. It also shows the significant influence of the environments and events experienced by the authors during their lives, on the formation of their thoughts and theories. At the very end of the thesis there is a reflection on the legitimacy of the Constitution of the Czech Republic and the contribution of the theories of appointed authors to today's society.

本文主旨是要說明：就《道德形上學》的論述而言，康德在何種意義上能夠被視為一個契約論思想家。本文將從兩條線索出發來理解康德所提出的契約論，這兩條線索分別是：康德的財產權理論、以及契約論中處理政治權威正當性時所必須面對的統一性問題。 本文認為：康德所提出的作為理念的原初契約，是一種提供給已處身在政治社會之下的個人，去設想當下所面對的法律強制力之正當性的方式。藉由康德在《純粹理性批判》之中對於「理念」的界定，可以將賦予原初契約一個確實的契約作用：人民的同意。儘管是一個被想像的同意，但康德賦予它積極的意義即形塑公民為一個自主、自律的主體，因此，在這個面向上，本文認為康德提出了儘管與霍布斯、洛克、盧梭迥異但卻仍然極富意義的契約論。 / The purpose of this thesis is that Kant should be seen as a theorist of the social contract theory in the discourse of the Metaphysics of Morals. This thesis will perceive the social contract theory provided by Kant in accordance to two clues, including the theory of property and the problem of unity. The main point of the thesis is that the original social contract as an idea of reason is the method providing for the individual existing in the civil society of constructing the legitimacy of the political authority. By definition of “Idea” in Critique of Pure reason, Kant gives the original social contract a meaningful function: the consent of people. Though the consent is a concept imagined by the people, Kant gives it a positive meaning of forming the people to the independent subject in politics. In conclusion, this thesis claims that Kant provided a meaningful social contract theory different from other theorists in the social contract tradition, such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau.