In the long term the issue of the welfare state is one of the most debated political topics and it concerns almost all members of society. In the last few decades the advanced welfare state has been more frequently perceived as an obstacle for competitiveness in the globalized economy and issues of its economic sustainability and societal impact are widely debated. Sweden is generally considered to be a country with the most advanced model of welfare state, but it is also a country which suffered from a deep economic crisis in the early 1990s. Development of the Swedish model of welfare state in the context of the crisis presents a critical case for assessment of welfare state vitality. In this thesis, welfare state is defined as a multidimensional phenomenon that includes both social expenditures and institutions of social policy and power structures and legitimacy. For analyzing of transformations of the Swedish welfare state in all four dimensions is applied a theoretical perspective based on the power resources theory, the institutional approach, the transnational perspective, the dependency and the world-systems theory which whose complementarity is theoretically substantiated. The thesis with this approach should contribute to better understanding of the development of the welfare state in...

This thesis concerns the Czechoslovak Social Democracy in the 1930's and 1940's. Its aim is to investigate whether the Social Democratic Party in the Third Republic moved from a mass party towards being a catch-all party. It investigates whether the move was in line with Otto Kirchheimer's theory. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first part is theoretically orientated. It analyzes how and why there was a move from a mass party towards a catch-all party. It also contains in which areas the change occured and how it occured. The second part focuses on whether the Social Democratic Party in the First Republic can be considered in the typology of political parties as a mass party. There is a conclusion that we can call it a mass party. The third part analyzes if the Social Democratic Party in the Third Republic moved from being a mass party to a catch-all party. The conclusion is that this happened. The final part is dedicated to whether the Social Democratic Party in the Third Republic moved closer to being a catch-all party in line with Otto Kirchheimer's theory. This part concludes that it was in line with this theory.

Administrators of 2-year colleges are working in an environment where they seek to balance the social development of the student and the community's demand for a trained workforce to achieve economic development. This balance has resulted in ambiguity about the mission and purpose of 2-year colleges. The purpose of this case study was to explore a community college's experiences with mission change by exploring the interaction between a neoliberal public policy environment and the traditional social democratic mission of academia. Harvey's conceptualization of neoliberalism was used as the theoretical framework. Data were collected through 15 semi-structured interviews with members of college leadership, faculty members, staff, and members of the college's advisory council. Other data included documentation about policy, mission, and publicly available documents related to the mission change at the institution. These data were deductively coded, and then subjected to content analysis. Key findings indicated that the college initially stalled in the mission change process, and as a result, identified alternative pathways to achieve the goals of career-relevant training the neoliberal environment demanded. In this sense, the perspective of academic capitalism was born from necessity for self-reliance and illustrates the commonality of finding entrepreneurial solutions. The implications for positive social change include recommendations to leaders of 2-year colleges on managing mission change in a way that responds to the needs of the college community while retaining the relevance of students' social development.

In Sweden, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022, the Social Democrats were inturmoil. Some factions had started openly advocating for Nato membership, while someremained staunchly opposed, favouring the status quo. This shift earned the partycriticism for having abandoned their last claim to any form of ideology. This studyproposes the use of politically aligned newspaper editorials as surrogates for studyingpolitical parties, gleaning insights into how stubborn or malleable the party isideologically, thus determining whether the Social Democrats lean more into idealism orrealism. Eight editorials are analysed and classified as Realist/Idealist andPro-/Anti-Nato. The tendency found is that there is a strong correlation between beingidealist and being against Nato-membership, and vice versa. This correlation is thenapplied to the Social Democrats, who voted for joining the alliance, to ultimately suggestthat the party today is more realist than idealist.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis examines a group of German intellectuals and politicians who, during World War I, formulated and proposed a democratic ideology based on their interpretation of the German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant and integrated his ideas with those of Karl Marx, the father of modern socialism. Their theory was an attempt to legitimize democracy in Germany at a time when democratic reforms came to the forefront of German politics. These thinkers advocated a non-revolutionary foundation for social democracy by emphasizing the role of human reason and agency in the process of democratization. Because they had abandoned the need for revolution, which most early nineteenth-century socialists believed was socialism’s ‘final goal,’ these thinkers were known as revisionists. The revisionists’ primary medium through which they espoused their views of social democracy was the journal Sozialistische Monatshefte, which ran from 1893 until 1933. The timeframe on which this argument focuses is the last two years of World War I, when Germany’s failure achieve a victor’s peace opened new avenues for the center-left of the political spectrum to achieve democratic reform. The revisionists sought to carry forward the process of democratization, and by doing so, reconnected with the ideas of the Enlightenment.

L’ascension du mouvement socialiste européen sous la direction de la Deuxième Internationale au tournant du siècle et son éclatement avec le déclenchement de la guerre de 1914 constitue un problème historique persistant. La contradiction saute aux yeux. Voilà un mouvement qui se revendiquait fermement de « l’internationalisme prolétarien », mais qui, au moment venu de le mettre en œuvre, affirma la nécessité de la « défense nationale ». Les formes concrètes de cette contradiction sont éclaircies par une étude de l’impact de la montée de l’impérialisme sur l’internationalisme des socialistes français et allemands durant la période précédant la guerre, du congrès de Londres de 1896 jusqu’à la résolution de la crise d’Agadir en 1912. La Deuxième Internationale est un mouvement dont les formes organisationnelles et pratiques sont ancrées dans un cadre national, alors que ses conceptions fondamentales sont celles de l’internationalisme. L’impérialisme renforce cette contradiction, et devient à la fois la source d’une concrétisation de l’internationalisme socialiste en théorie, et de son abandon en pratique. Privilégiant l’analyse de l’internationalisme comme un phénomène politique plutôt que culturel ou sentimental, ce travail démontre l’existence d’un gouffre entre le discours théorique et la pratique du mouvement. La montée de l’impérialisme est accompagnée de la montée du réformisme au sein du mouvement socialiste, qui, avec d’autres phénomènes, renforce ses tendances nationales. Les tendances nationales du mouvement persistent lors de moments clés, notamment les crises impérialistes de Tanger (1905) et d’Agadir (1911), au point de remettre en question les fondements internationalistes du mouvement. / The rise of the European socialist movement under the leadership of the Second International at the turn of the century and its breakup with the outbreak of the 1914 war is a persistent historical problem. The contradiction is obvious. Here was a movement that firmly proclaimed "proletarian internationalism", but which, when the time came to implement it, affirmed the necessity of "national defense". The concrete forms of this contradiction are illuminated by a study of the impact of the rise of imperialism on the internationalism of French and German socialists in the period leading up to the war, from the London Congress of 1896 to the resolution of the Agadir crisis in 1912. The Second International is a movement whose organizational and practical forms are rooted in a national framework, while its fundamental conceptions are those of internationalism. Imperialism reinforces this contradiction, and becomes at the same time the source of a concretization of socialist internationalism in theory, and of its abandonment in practice. Emphasizing the analysis of internationalism as a political rather than a cultural or sentimental phenomenon, this work demonstrates the existence of a chasm between the theoretical discourse and the practice of the movement. The rise of imperialism is accompanied by the rise of reformism within the socialist movement, which, along with other phenomena, reinforces its national tendencies. The national tendencies of the movement persisted at key moments, notably the imperialist crises of Tangier (1905) and Agadir (1911), to the point of calling into question the internationalist foundations of the movement.

Though various obligations typically affect our behavior without being recognized, they have a substantial impact on how we operate as human beings. The relationships we have between, say, our parents when in their household obligate us to take out the trash at certain times and wash the dishes after dinner. The relationships we have between our closest friends often oblige us to hear them out when they have undergone a traumatic experience. Upon reflection, it may be easy to point out a number of the obligations which inform our social behavior. What is not so easy, however, is pointing out the foundation for such obligations. In this project I will explore the foundation of obligation, specifically political obligation. Through this exploration I will attempt to situation political obligation in the ontology of political actors. In particular, an analysis of liberal democracy and social democracy, and their ontological backgrounds, liberalism and communitarianism, will be utilized in order to elucidate both the usefulness and the location of political obligation. Ultimately, I will show how recourse to Marxism provides for a more robust account of political obligation.

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This study distils some of the principal political and sociological lines of enquiry that Neville Alexander embarked upon in his published writings. It initially sets out to sketch the political, economic and intellectual milieu that he encountered after his release from Robben Island in 1974, and then it addresses the language question, as a part of the national question, in South Africa. The researcher argues that Alexander’s “dance” in the world of political and educational interventions has at times been solitary but that his discourse is substantively girded by the writings and experiences of established practitioners in the fields of sociolinguistics, political economy and cultural activities. The study concludes that his policy proposals on language in particular, in spite of the fact that the constitutional and institutional infrastructure exists for their implementation, have been put on the back burner because the dominant linguistic interests of the post-apartheid government correspond with the communication interests of market-driven institutions in the country, and not with the interests of the linguistic majorities who populate the nation. / Neville Alexander's thoughts on the language question in South Africa / Language question in South Africa / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study identifies the way in which Brazil was able to achieve significant economic and social development during the Presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva from 2003 to 2010. The element which makes the achievement of this development extremely interesting is the fact that it was engineered by a traditionally radical Leftist party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – Workers’ Party) within the context of the globalized world economy. Throughout much of its existence, the PT has called for a radical socialist transformation of Brazilian society. However, once it came to power, it not only rejected radical positions, but acquiesced fully with the constraints placed upon it by global capital. Thus, in addition to describing the process of development in Brazil, this study also attempts to account for the way in which it was achieved. This is done by postulating that the Lula (as he is commonly referred to) administration was successful in solidifying Brazilian economic fundamentals, as well as in significantly reducing poverty and inequality in one of the most unequal societies in the world, because it adopted Third Way economic and social policies. It is argued that, even though there were few clear indications from the government that it regarded itself as following the Third Way, a practical examination of Lula’s economic and social policies indicate that they overwhelmingly conform to the prescripts of the Third Way. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie identifiseer die manier waarop noemenswaardige ekonomiese en sosiale ontwikkeling in Brasilië plaasgevind het gedurende 2003 tot 2010, onder leiding van President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva. ‘n Faktor wat hierdie ontwikkeling besonder interessant maak, is die feit dat dit plaasgevind het binne die konteks van die globaliseerde wêreldekonomie, onder die bewind van ‘n tradisionele radikale Linkse party, die Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – Arbeiders Party). Die PT het tradisioneel gestreef na ‘n radikale sosialistiese transformasie van die Brasiliaanse samelewing. Teen die tyd dat dit egter aan bewind gekom het, het dit radikale beleide verwerp en ten volle saamgewerk met globale kapitalisme. Hierdie studie beskyf dus nie slegs die proses van Brasiliaanse ontwikkeling nie, maar poog ook om te verklaar waarom hierdie ontwikkeling plaasgevind het. Daar word aangevoer dat Lula (soos hy algemeen bekend staan) se bewind suksesvol was in pogings om die fundamentele aspekte van die Brasiliaanse ekonomie te versterk, en terselfdertyd armoede en ongelykheid aansienlik te verlaag in een van die mees ongelyke samelewings ter wêreld. Die rede vir hierdie sukses is te vinde in die feit dat die PT regering “Third Way” ekonomiese en sosiale beleide toegepas het. Die studie voer aan dat, alhoewel daar weinig verwysing gemaak is na die “Third Way” deur Lula se regering, ‘n praktiese ontleding van hul ekonomiese en sosiale beleide toon dat Brasilië ‘n geval verteenwoordig van ‘n ontwikkelende land wat die “Third Way” prakties geïmplementeer het.