台灣蘭花業者過去憑藉著優異的育種技術以及豐富的種源，在全球蘭花市場上佔有一席之地。由於蘭花經濟價值高，近年已吸引許多國外業者投入栽植與生產，目前包括荷蘭、美國、日本、韓國、泰國、加拿大以及中國大陸等國家的業者都開始切入蘭花市場。就蘭花的銷售而言，影響蘭花價值的因子除了有商品定位形象外，隨著建築風格的改變、空間配置的調整，新的消費需求將決定未來的蘭花價值。 美國蘭花市場是台灣第二大外銷市場，台灣蘭花外銷美國的外銷量在過去3年中平均每年有超過60%成長（外銷值平均則是每年有超過38%的成長），因此美國蘭花市場的變化將可牽動國內蘭花業者的獲利空間。 本研究目的在於分析美國蘭花市場的供應鏈的現況以及批發市場現況、並調查美國政府對於蘭花進口的相關法規制度以及台灣蘭花輸美現況，進以剖析美國蘭花市場以及找尋台灣蘭花在美國市場的商業機會。 經調查發現：美國蘭花市場主要是盆花市場，在1999年至2007年間，美國蘭花盆花市場的批發值（約1.2億美元/每年）約為蘭花切花 批發市場的10 – 16倍；以進出口的比例來看，美國蘭花盆花的進口價值為出口價值的6倍以上，因此美國屬於蘭花盆花淨輸入國；美國蘭花盆花的主要輸入源為：台灣、泰國、荷蘭、加拿大、中國與韓國；其中過去9年中，美國每年自中國、韓國、加拿大以及泰國進口的蘭花價值或是重量的複合年成長率都超越台灣；因此雖然目前台灣仍是美國的蘭花的最主要進口源，但是未來在開創美國市場時，除了應注意荷蘭業者的動態外，亦需注意中國、韓國、加拿大以及泰國的蘭花業者狀態。 美國蘭花切花進口量在2004年達最大以後即開始下滑，雖然進口量下滑但是進口總值提升，足見進口單價明顯提升。 就美國的蘭花進口法規來看，美國農業部認為絕大部分的貿易用蘭花切花都是來自於人工繁殖的植株，因此不屬於CITES的限制範圍；除非有明顯證據證實是採集自野外，否則，在檢查後，蘭花切花的商業性運輸將會被海關放行；另外，美國政府主要是依CITES的規定來執行蘭花盆花進口的查核，而目前CITES中關於人工繁殖的雜交蕙蘭（Cymbidium）、石斛蘭（Dendrobium）（血色石斛蘭（Dendrobium cruentum）除外）、蝴蝶蘭（Phalaenopsis）以及萬代蘭（Vanda）的蘭花有相同的標準，蝴蝶蘭並不是唯一的豁免種類。 就美國國內交易市場現況來看，荷蘭業者以及加拿大業者已將花卉公開拍賣市場機制引進美國，並會透過快遞業者進行蘭花遞送。 總體而言，台灣蘭花盆花以及蘭花切花在美國市場都有發展機會；建議未來的發展方向可包含：1. 依據不同地理區位市場的氣候環境與人口組成，透過育種技術來提供適地適境並符合市場期待的蘭種，並透過主張植物品種權及/或專利權及/或透過營業秘密的方式掌握育種優勢；2. 開始植根美國當地，直接引進台灣的育種與育苗技術進入美國境內（或是鄰近國家）進行蘭花的生產；3. 充分掌握國際與美國國內法規變化、定期調查美國市場需求變動，並善用美國多元化通路，不疏漏美國蘭花切花市場，也不輕忽蝴蝶蘭以外的蘭花盆花市場。 / Taiwan is a major worldwide supplier of orchids due to its outstanding seeding and breeding techniques and the natural environment. In the recent years, the lucrative economic value of orchids has prompted many industries from other countries, such as Holland, United States, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Canada and China to invest in orchid productions. In addition to the merchandise image of orchids that affects their price, demands resulting from the changing architecture styles and interior designs further determine the future value of orchids. The US orchid market is the second biggest place for orchids exported from Taiwan. Over the past three years, the average annual growth rate of orchid export weights from Taiwan to the US is over 60%, while the orchid export value on average has increased by over 38%. Therefore, the role and the possible commercial opportunities of orchids from Taiwan in the US market require further attention from the orchid farmers and the government in Taiwan. The aim of this study is to analyze the possible commercial opportunity of orchid from Taiwan in the US market by understanding the current supply chain and wholesale value of the US orchid market, ascertaining the relevant import and export laws and regulations, and investigating the current state of orchids from Taiwan in the US orchid market. According to previous investigations, it is realized that the potted orchid is the major type purchased in the US. Between 1999 and 2007, the wholesale value of potted orchids is around 120 million dollars per year, which is about 10-16 times more than that of the cut orchid. Furthermore, the US is a net import country of orchids, where the import orchid value is 6 times more than the export orchid value. Taiwan, Thailand, Holland, Canada, China and Korea are the main sources from which orchids are imported to the US. Over the last 9 years, the compound annual growth rates of both the quantity and the value of orchids imported from China, Korea, Canada and Thailand have exceeded those from Taiwan. Therefore, although Taiwan is still the major source where orchids in the US are imported from, the orchid industries from China, Korea, Canada and Thailand in addition to Holland should also be monitored. The peak of imported cut orchid quantity was in 2004 before starting to decline. Meanwhile, however, the imported cut orchid value increased. Therefore, the price for imported cut orchid thrived over the last few years. Based on Cut Flowers and Greenery Import Manual, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)of United States Department of Agriculture considers that “the great majority of orchids encountered in the trade are from artificially propagated plants and therefore fall outside the scope of the CITES Regulations; therefore, INSPECT and RELEASE commercial shipments of cut orchids unless you have convincing proof that the orchids were collected in the wild; neither permits nor certificates are necessary for orchid blossoms from artificially propagated plants”. This indicates that the US government holds a relatively open attitude towards the international cut orchid trades. Moreover, based on CITES appendices valid since July 1, 2008, it is known that “artificially propagated hybrids of the following genera are not subject to the provisions of the Convention, if conditions, as indicated under a) and b), are met: Cymbidium, Dendrobium, Phalaenopsis and Vanda”. Therefore, Cymbidium, Dendrobium（except Dendrobium cruentum）, Phalaenopsis and Vanda are under the same protection level based on CITES. Moreover, companies from Holland and Canada have introduced an auction mechanism for orchids into the US orchid market, and the auctioned orchids are delivered by express. The orchid industry in Taiwan has the experience and ability to export a variety of orchids to various countries, and the US orchid market is relatively open to various orchids. Both potted and cut orchids from Taiwan show commercially competitive advantage in the US market, but new marketing strategies of orchids from Taiwan in the US market are required to be implemented prior to the development thereto. Suggestions for the orchid industry in Taiwan include the following. 1. to develop customised orchid plants that are most suitable for specific markets based on the natural environment and/or the demographic make-up, and to allow further development of these dominant species by applying protection under PVPA, plant patent and/or utility patent; 2. to directly introduce the seeding and breeding experiences and techniques from Taiwan to the US or nearby countries to shorten transportation time and to allow for mass production; 3. to regularly acquire information about the changes to the CITES, US import laws and/or regulations and trends in the orchid market, and to fully utilize the diverse orchid distribution routes and the resources from research institutes for the full development of cut and potted orchid markets.

There is a lively academic debate concerning US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era and especially after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Neoconservatism has become a cause celebre in the literature of international relations with a variety of scholars disagreeing as to its supposed impact on Washington's world affairs approach and the Bush administration's decision to remove Saddam Hussein, from power manu militari. This thesis is an analysis of the way this political ideology was interpreted in the European elite media. It will be demonstrated how a significant section of key opinion-forming newspapers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy framed neoconservatism during the administration of Bill Clinton and partly that of George W. Bush. There will be an exploration of whether and how newspapers vary in their coverage. The thesis will outline that the influence of the neoconservatives in US foreign policy can be disputed and will suggest that their ideas can be hardly considered as revolutionary ones. It will then focus on the media coverage and will show that the prominence devoted to neoconservatism by the accessed print sources is a relatively recent phenomenon. The findings indicate that the newspapers differed in their representation of the political ideology only in the period before 9/11 when they mainly discussed it in the context of domestic affairs. By contrast, after the terrorist atrocities and especially since 2003 they linked neoconservatism to US foreign policy and largely focused on it - as opposed to competing international relations theories -, representing it in a remarkably similar way. With the exception of The Times, which followed a comparatively balanced approach, they constructed it as a driving force behind George W. Bush's international politics approach and the war on Iraq. The media emphasis on neoconservatism will be attributed to different factors - such the scapegoat theory - which maybe influenced the journalistic work. The general consensus as to their understanding of neoconservatism and its supposed impact will not support the claim of a European public sphere but will be considered as a positive step towards its possible creation.

This thesis asks why Japan decided to procure BMD if it meant building an infrastructure which, because of its technological nature, had the potential to disrupt Japan’s preferred security strategy of hedging, that is, maintaining ambiguity of commitment, vis-à-vis China and the US. The investigation was divided into three parts dealing with the following questions – Why did Japan's BMD procurement matter? Who mattered? Why were the BMD and related decisions made? Such a structure of research was informed by “neoclassical realism,” according to which the relative material power of a country sets the parameters of its foreign policy, but the policy choices within these international constraints are made by political elites. A range of policymaking heuristics were used to investigate the domestic element of the approach. In addition to the conventionally specified policymaking actors such as MOD, MOFA, Prime Ministers, an original attempt was made to identify the possible influences of several elite networks. On the basis of the notes from the Japan-US Security Strategy Conference, two elite networks were analysed, namely the Japan’s Congressional National Security Research Group and Japan-US Centre for Peace and Cultural Exchange. It was concluded that they have probably had some influence on shaping Japan's BMD decisions. The conclusion of this research is that BMD was procured despite its disruptive potential because it was a tool of shifting Japanese policy from one hedging policy to another, that is, from one based on self-imposed restraints toward one exercised from the position of military strength. An analysis of international relations in East Asia in 1994-2007 and an analysis of the views of the security elites make Japan's transition toward a military strength-based hedging appear rational and confirm BMD's utility as a tool in this transition. Some negative consequences of a possible disruption to hedging, induced by BMD, can be contained exactly because of such a reformatting of hedging.

Previous research has shown that Taiwan's military spending is affected either by China's military buildup or the US's military pipeline. This study investigates whether it is also true an ongoing US-China relationship has dynamic effects. Three major findings are obtained from the statistical analyses. First and foremost, the level of US-China conflict has a contemporaneous positive effect on Taiwan's military spending. Second, the analyses also indicate that the volatility of US-China relations has negative effects on Taiwan's military spending. This finding suggests that instability in US-China relations will prompt Taiwan to decrease its military spending due to a higher amount of perceived security on the one hand, and Taiwan wants to avoid further provoking China on the other. Third, analyses indicate that an error correction model fares better than a simple budgetary incremental model in explaining the re-equilibrating effects of GNP growth on Taiwan's military spending. Overall, the results demonstrate the interplay of domestic and international constraints and may help to predict what will be the expected military spending when Taiwan's economy changes. I suggest that Taiwan's military spending is likely to be influenced by US-China relations as well as by foreign investment and domestic economic constraints as long as the United States policy toward the Taiwan problem remains unchanged.

This study compares the impact of media ownership, regulation and policy, and technology adoption on the introduction of digital terrestrial television in the United States and Mainland China. Through the use of a case study approach, a qualitative and quantitative examination is given. The results indicate that private group ownership throughout the U.S. digital terrestrial television industry and state ownership in China's television industry lead to the different paths to digital transition. Both governments, however, are deeply involved in respective digital initiatives and play an important role in the implementation from analog to digital. The technical standard adoption in the two countries places the underpinning for the future development of digital television (DTV), which also results in China lagging behind the United States by almost ten years. The differences of technological environments in households and income among consumers in the two countries further predict the intention to DTV adoption.

After the invasion of Iraq and the destruction of Saddam regime in 2003, the US administration undertook the complete remaking of Iraq as a national-state. The initial steps of the US administration were the quasi eradication of the old Iraqi State. Then, this nation-building endeavor has been based on a federal constitution promoting an Ethno- sectarian power sharing and the attempt to transform what was once a centralized economy into a comprehensive market driven society. However, the post-2003 period had been marked by the rising of identity politics, the constant delegitimisation of the new political order and successive episode of massive violence. Obviously, the question of violence and its apex in 2006-2007, is central to understand the post-2003 period in Iraq. For the first time in Iraqi history, waves of ethno-sectarian violence seriously challenged the possibility of a common life for all the diverse components of the Iraqi society. The Iraqi nation seemed to have been consumed in an existential conflict between components and communal identifications once relatively integrated. Therefore, there is a need to render an analytical account of the aggressive rise of identity politics, the outbreak of violence and finally the episodes of civil war in 2005-2007 in Iraq. This study aims to answer these questions by tracking the different political and social processes that have been at play during the American occupation of Iraq and that lead to the events of 2005-2007. In order to do so, I will consider the dynamical relations that link political institutions, violence and self-identifications in regard to the Iraqi society and Iraq as a National State. This research is built as a case study based mostly on qualitative analysis and the collection of empirical data, interviews, and fieldwork observations as well as primary and secondary sources. I set out to identify actors and processes and determine a complex chain of reactions (a trajectory) that led to the current state of affairs in Iraq. This trajectory could be summarized in few sentences: The destruction of the old Iraqi State and the brutal implementation of Neo-liberal rationality and re- regulations policies by the US occupation ended into a dystopian economy and the creation of an "absent state" (Davis, 2011). Since its very first day, this US lead nation-building endeavor has been flawed by a complete lack of legitimacy and its substitution with coercion by the US and the New Iraqi "State" security apparatus. Meanwhile, the imposition and the institutionalization of Ethno-sectarian affiliations as a principle of political legitimacy contributed to transform the different communities of Iraq into main avenues for access and control of scarce economic and political resources. In a way, US occupation and new Iraqi elites were deflecting the political question of right following a movement similar to what Mamdani and Brown describe as a "Culturalisation of Politics" (2004, 2006). The result was a failure to establish a legitimate and functional political and economic order. This led to the rise of a System of Violence, organized around networks of violence. Within the System of Violence, Culturalisation of Politics would be translated into Culturalisation of Violence. This would contribute to the sectarianisation of space in Baghdad and other localities of Iraq, as well as "manufacturing" (Gregory, 2008) and essentialising sectarian representations and identifications within the society.

Denna uppsats undersöker vilket innehåll USA:s president Donald Trump fyllde begreppen ”vi” och ”dom” med via sitt Twitterkonto under de sista tre veckorna av presidentvalrörelsen 2016. Analysen motiveras av att den kan ge en fingervisning om vilken politik Trump kommer att verka för som president. Forskningsfrågan för studien är: Med vilket innehåll fyller Donald Trump, genom sitt Twitterkonto, signifikanterna ”vi” och ”dom”? Uppsatsen ingår i forskningsfältet politisk kommunikation och utgår från ett teoretiskt ramverk som lägger stor vikt vid språkets funktion i konstruktionen av verkligheten. Som metod används diskursanalys, där betydelserna för ”vi” och ”dom” tolkas utifrån hur begreppen sammankopplas med andra betydelsebärande begrepp och den kontext som tweetarna är skrivna i. I uppsatsens analys framkommer det att Trump konstruerar en motsättning mellan ”vi” och ”dom” som baseras på religiös tillhörighet och ursprung, och där ”dom” som är muslimer eller har invandrat från Latinamerika utgör problemet. Utifrån den konstruerade problembilden kan politiska krav som att stoppa invandringen från muslimska länder och att deportera miljontals invandrade från Latinamerika, framstå som logiska lösningar. Lösningar som också har presenterats av Donald Trump. Denna typ av politiska förslag riskerar leda till att ytterligare öka främlingsfientligheten och de sociala spänningarna i USA. / This paper examines the content US President Donald Trump filled the terms "us" and "them" via his Twitter account during the last three weeks of the presidential election campaign in 2016. The analysis is motivated because it can give an indication of what kind of policy Trump will suggest as president. The research question for this study is: With what content does Donald Trump, through his Twitter account, fill the signifiers "us" and "them"? The essay is part of the research field of political communication and is based on a theoretical framework which places emphasis on the function language has as a tool for the construction of reality. Discourse analysis is used as method, which implicates that the meanings of "us" and "them" is interpreted on the basis of how the concepts are connected with other meaningful concepts and the context in which the tweets are produced. According to the analysis of this paper, Donald Trump constructs an opposition between "us" and "them" based on religious affiliation and origin, in which "them" – who are Muslim or immigrants from Latin America – are the problem. Based on this constructed conflict, the political demands to stop immigration from Muslim countries and deport millions of immigrants from Latin America, appears as logical solutions. Solutions that has also been presented by Donald Trump. This type of policy proposals could lead to a further strengthening of the social divisiveness and an increase of xenophobia in USA.

The recent growth of Teach For America (TFA) has enabled it to substantially expand the teacher labour supply in many rural Southern communities, one of its largest and fastest-growing partnership subsets. Though it is generally accepted that these areas face more severe teacher shortages than most other regions in the country, there is little research as to how these staffing challenges arise or how they might be resolved; TFA’s potential to grow the rural Southern teacher supply thus signals a promising opportunity in need of further research. This work offers a case study of teacher labour outcomes in the Mississippi-Arkansas Delta, TFA’s oldest and largest rural Southern partnership site. In this region, local schools have experienced a 600 per-cent increase in corps member presence since 2008; consequently, TFA provided anywhere from a quarter to a half of the area’s new teacher labour supply each year from 2008 to 2010. A mixed-methods analysis illuminates both the causes of Delta teacher shortages and TFA’s potential to address these vacancies. Within the Delta, local schools face chronic teacher shortages because the communities they serve are overwhelmingly poor, geographically isolated, and racially segregated. TFA appears to have targeted the Delta communities where teacher labour policies have systematically fallen short, as it partners with districts bearing the greatest share of the region’s aggregate teacher vacancies. Additional statistical testing reveals that amongst these hard-to-staff districts, TFA has further focussed its resources into the schools that serve more rural, less educated, and/or predominantly African American populations. In this way, TFA funnels its corps members into the very districts where state reform efforts have struggled most, thus serving as a powerful resource for realigning ‘sticky’ outcomes in the most hard-to-staff Delta school districts. These findings notwithstanding, closer examination reveals significant drawbacks and limitations to current TFA outcomes in the rural Southern Delta. TFA does not saturate hard-to-staff school districts enough to produce statistically significant changes in local teacher vacancy rates. Instead, the programme appears to have established an unofficial threshold for the number of teachers placed per district; once this ceiling has been reached, additional corps members are funnelled into a new area regardless of the original district’s remaining need. Additionally, there is no long-term ‘exit strategy’ to help Delta districts employing TFA corps members to eventually cultivate their own high-quality teacher labour supply, thus leaving them perpetually dependent on TFA to staff their classrooms. Preliminary evidence suggests that state governments could address these shortcomings through 1) increased financial support for TFA to fully saturate vacancies in current partnership districts, as well as 2) the simultaneous development of grow-your-own teacher certification programmes in rural Delta districts. The evidence suggests that these two strategies would improve TFA as a targeted teacher recruitment strategy for hard-to-staff communities both in the Delta and across the programme’s nine other rural Southern partnership sites.

The record of American foreign policy in the Middle East between 2001 and 2006 is marked mostly by failures of the Bush Administration to achieve its stated objectives, including reducing terrorism, stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and spreading liberal democracy. Still, there are also notable bright spots, including the case of Libya’s diplomatic rehabilitation. What is it, then, that accounts for this success in the face of so many other failures where the policy goals were markedly similar? I argue that a partial explanation of this discrepancy can be found in the nature of infighting between ideological realists and neoconservatives within the foreign policy bureaucracy. In doing so, process tracing is used to examine policy development toward four country cases: Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Libya, with Libya acting as the control. The object of these case studies is to demonstrate existence of a previously undescribed model of bureaucratic infighting, based on competing ideological differences regarding the fundamental direction and conduct of US foreign policy. I call this the Ideological Infighting, or I2, Model. Whereas previous works of US foreign policy analysis have focused only on the roles of individuals’ ideology or on bureaucratic interests, this study unites both. In doing so, it describes the policy effects that result from ideological disagreements within the executive agencies, rather than viewing a presidential administration as an ideologically coherent entity. It also refines understandings of the relationship between the President and his advisors. Finally, although this work deals specifically with the Middle East, the model is generalizable to all areas of US foreign policy.

À l’origine, la nouvelle concernant l’occupation américaine d’Haïti en 1915 a suscité peu d’indignation aux États-Unis. En effet, on reproche à la république son instabilité politique et on juge aussi qu’une intervention américaine concourrait à l’édifice de l’autorité de la loi. À partir de 1915 et surtout en 1920, l’Association nationale pour l’avancement des gens de couleur (NAACP), fondée en 1909, critique cette ingérence et milite pour y voir un terme. W.E. B. Du Bois et James Weldon Johnson, deux figures publiques noires importantes travaillant au sein de l’organisation, dénoncent avec conviction l’occupation d’Haïti. Les historiens ont jusqu’ici jugé que la NAACP fut inspirée par des considérations de solidarité raciale en adhérant à la cause de la souveraineté haïtienne. Si la thèse présente ne réfute pas cette possibilité, elle cherche tout de même à démontrer que le cadre conceptuel de la solidarité raciale ne saurait illustrer toute la complexité de la campagne haïtienne érigée par la NAACP. Par conséquent, une attention dirigée davantage sur le contexte social et politique américain entre 1915 et 1922 révèle que pour la NAACP, la dénonciation de l’occupation américaine d’Haïti représentait d’une part une opportunité de discuter des problèmes sociaux touchant les Afro-Américains, et d’autre part, une occasion de renforcer sa position aux États-Unis. / Initially, the news of the U.S. occupation of Haiti in 1915 generated little concern in the United States. Indeed, Haiti’s political instability made it such that a U.S. intervention seemed unavoidable. As of 1915 and especially 1920, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, denounced the U.S. interference in the Caribbean island. W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson, two of the association’s most influential black members, were deeply invested in condemning the U.S. occupation of Haiti. Historiographical tendencies have long located the NAACP’s engagement with Haiti in a conversation about black solidarity, but have failed to adequately consider the local politics that may have inspired the NAACP’s work. While this thesis does not refute the importance of black solidarity, it does recognise the limits of this conceptual approach in trying to explain the complexity of the NAACP’s work on the behalf of Haiti’s sovereignty. Placing more attention on the social and political context in the United States between 1915 and 1922 reveals that the NAACP utilised the occupation of Haiti as a means of attracting broader attention to domestic issues affecting black Americans, but also as a means of reinforcing the organisation’s own profile in the United States.