This thesis aims to scrutinize the Visegrad Quadruple Initiative as a device of the Central European countries in the process of involving into the re-negotiations in Europe and in world politics. The thesis argues that the Visegrad group was built in order to respond the demands of changing Europe and Euro-Atlantic structures, and thus to overcome the double process of transition and integration. However that was not the only reason to launch the Visegrad regional cooperation. The group produced an affirmative discourse that its members are distinguished from the other countries in transition, so that they are constantly one step forward to &lsquo / return to Europe&rsquo / . In the aftermath of the eastern enlargements of NATO and the EU alike, the original mission of the group, integration with the West, was achieved. That created a profound discussion about the survival of the group. As it is argued in this thesis, the group, as a prosperous and substantial regional cooperation, should rather continue to work in order to have more words to say in the re-negotiations processes. Another argument of the thesis is that the Visegrad group, taking Benelux group as a model in its continuity, is beneficial to produce a common foreign policy tendency among its members as long as the interests of its members are overlapping, otherwise the group is just being a political platform in which its members can share their views in such areas as regional regulations.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Political Science, 2007. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-222).

This thesis aims to scrutinize the Visegrad Quadruple Initiative as a device of the Central European countries in the process of involving into the re-negotiations in Europe and in world politics. The thesis argues that the Visegrad group was built in order to respond the demands of changing Europe and Euro-Atlantic structures, and thus to overcome the double process of transition and integration. However that was not the only reason to launch the Visegrad regional cooperation. The group produced an affirmative discourse that its members are distinguished from the other countries in transition, so that they are constantly one step forward to &lsquo / return to Europe&rsquo / . In the aftermath of the eastern enlargements of NATO and the EU alike, the original mission of the group, integration with the West, was achieved. That created a profound discussion about the survival of the group. As it is argued in this thesis, the group, as a prosperous and substantial regional cooperation, should rather continue to work in order to have more words to say in the re-negotiations processes. Another argument of the thesis is that the Visegrad group, taking Benelux group as a model in its continuity, is beneficial to produce a common foreign policy tendency among its members as long as the interests of its members are overlapping, otherwise the group is just being a political platform in which its members can share their views in such areas as regional regulations.

This thesis examines Anglo-French perceptions of power within the context of the rise of the United States of America. It uses several overlapping events falling within a moment at the end of the nineteenth century (1898-1899) - the Spanish-American War, the Dreyfus Affair and the Fashoda crisis - to explore various British and French actors' perceptions of national power, decline, and international competition. It draws heavily on diplomatic material, but its methodology is primarily cultural. It examines ways in which various cultural assumptions affected perceptions of power and global events. It takes a particular interest in the relationship between ideas about gender and dimensions of national power. It focuses on contemporary preoccupations and assumptions, whether spoken or unspoken, and argues that they could prove determinative. External realities were refracted into perceptions that in turn drove prescriptions and policy. The thesis juxtaposes perspectives from multiple states, thereby contextualizing or comparing British, French and occasionally American preoccupations with those of their transatlantic contemporaries. It draws upon archival sources which previously have been under-examined or approached from different perspectives and research priorities. Its exploration of the cultural dimensions of thought about national power and success is grounded in an awareness of the analysis and actions of certain diplomats and politicians involved in the more practical business of international affairs. Conversely, diplomatic and other records are situated within their cultural milieu, to better understand the context in which views about the international order were shaped. The thesis necessarily makes excursions into the history of emotions, since its actors' political analyses at times appear entangled and aligned with their emotional responses. The thesis therefore serves as an example of an international history that integrates diplomatic with cultural and emotional elements and demonstrates their mutual illumination.

x, 255 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This dissertation examines transatlantic, and especially American, literary responses to urban and industrial change from the 1840s through the 1930s. It combines cultural materialist theory with environmental history in order to investigate the interrelationship of literature, economy, and biophysical systems. In lieu of a traditional ecocritical focus on wilderness preservation and the accompanying literary mode of nature writing, I bring attention to reforms of the "built environment" and to the related category of social problem fiction, including narratives of documentary realism, urban naturalism, and politically-oriented utopianism. The novels and short stories of Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Rebecca Harding Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Upton Sinclair, and Mike Gold offer an alternative history of environmental writing, one that foregrounds the interaction between nature and labor. Through a strategy of "literal reading" I connect the representation of particular environments in the work of these authors to the historical situation of actual spaces, including the western Massachusetts forest of Melville's "Tartarus of Maids," the Virginia factory town of Davis's Iron Mills, the Midwestern hinterland of Sinclair's The Jungle, and the New York City ghetto of Gold's Jews without Money. Even as these texts foreground the class basis of environmental hazard, they simultaneously display an ambivalence toward the physical world, wavering between pastoral celebrations and gothic vilifications of nature, and condemning ecological destruction even as they naturalize the very socio-economic forces responsible for such calamity. Following Raymond Williams, I argue that these contradictory treatments of nature have a basis in the historical relationship between capitalist society and the material world. Fiction struggles to contain or resolve its implication in the very culture that destroys the land base it celebrates. Thus, the formal fissures and the anxious eruptions of nature in fiction relate dialectically to the contradictory position of the ecosystem itself within the regime of industrial capital. However, for all of this ambivalence, transatlantic social reform fiction of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century provides a model for an environmentally-oriented critical realist aesthetic, an aesthetic that retains suspicion toward representational transparency, and yet simultaneously asserts the didactic, ethical, and political functions of literature. / Committee in charge: William Rossi, Chairperson, English; Henry Wonham, Member, English; Enrique Lima, Member, English; Louise Westling, Member, English; John Foster, Outside Member, Sociology

This diploma thesis is focused on deepening of the transatlantic economic relations between countries, which form European Union nowadays and USA, since the end of the Second World War until the present time. Result of these deep transatlantic relations on every level is negotiation of unique agreement TTIP. Thesis analyses current state of bilateral trade between EU and USA, with subsequent utilization of three different, but closely interconnected economies of Slovakia, Czech Republic and Germany and their trade with USA, which will be then compared with projected impacts of TTIP agreement on these economies and their trade, GDP and unemployment. TTIP agreement is being presented in detail in this thesis as well its basic draft, motives of both negotiating sides and also the critical topics, which slow down the whole negotiations.

The thesis discusses the differences and the role of the traditional centers of international trade. It is conducted through comparative analysis of the two ports in the open and closed economy - Rotterdam and Alexandria. In the first chapter, that is based on the theoretical and analytical frame, are specified the relevant facts and empirical findings in the field of international trade, centers of the international trade and maritime transport. The second chapter named Characterization and comparison of national economies deeper investigates the environment in which are the selected ports located. Chapter three and four deal with the Rotterdam respectively Alexandria in the detail view consisting of a historical context, profile and description of the port, the commodity structure, current development, future plans, related industrial regions and areas. The last chapter contains a comparison of the Rotterdam and Alexandria, including SWOT analysis.

The thesis discusses the position of the European automotive industry in comparison to the other world centers of automobile production after the economic crisis which began in 2007. One of the EU industry and trade policy's instruments is the system of trade agreements between EU and its partners. This thesis focuses on analysis of the strategic decisions of the automobile manufacturers related to the current trade agreements and estimates the impacts of the upcoming agreements, especially of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and free trade agreements with Japan and India.

This thesis focuses on analysis of the shifting role of the state in the context of globalization processes and aims to explain acting of the state in a bilateral cooperation, as an actor who faces these challenges. This framework is afterwards examined on the transatlantic economic cooperation. Main argument is, that in the bilateral cooperation, such shifts can be observed, that are intertwined with greater interactions of components of the states. These transgovernmental networks can be considered inevitable in response to the rising significance of non-tariff barriers and in trade liberalization. In case of the EU-US partnership, the cooperation on this level is focused on harmonizing of regulatory measures what is crucial for further integration of the transatlantic economic relations.

The theme of this thesis is the impact of the EU internal market on its external relations - firstly, it asks to what scope can we use the knowledge gained from establishing the internal market and if it can improve the current negotiations and, secondly, whether the already established internal market and its institutions can affect the establishment of relations between the European Union and the United States. The work focuses on the economic level of relations and specifically on the importance of services, both in the economies and the global value chains. It shows that the services sector is politically very sensitive and that the problems which the European Union had to deal with when trying to gain the approval of the Services Directive, are similar to the situation that evolves around negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, with the negotiations being further complicated by internal interactions between the EU institutions.