The end of politics: democracy bureaucracy and utopia in Lenin

The thesis is an attempt to offer a reconsideration of Lenin's book The State and Revolution, The argument is that commentators have failed to appreciate the centrality of its concepts to Lenin's mature theory of politics, and to the body of ideas that subsequently became Leninism It further argues that an understanding of the present Soviet regime, and others of a similar nature, is aided by a realisation that the themes of The State and Revolution are present in the institutional arrangements of those societies. The Introduction takes as a starting point recent events in Poland; and suggests that an understanding of those events may be gained by an investigation of the discourse on political forms that Marxism offers. Chapter One presents the origins of the text, its theses in summary form, and the reception given to the text by subsequent commentators. These are divided into those taking a historical and those taking a political' approach. Suggestions are made of the Inadequacy of both approaches, reasons for such inadequacies are proposed, and an attempt is made to offer an alternative approach based upon hermeneutics, in particular Gadamer's concept of effective history. Chapter Two examines the way Lenin conceptualised the problems of state and politics in post revolutionary society, and the measures he proposed for the solution of these problems. It is argued that the libertarian arrangements suggested in the text in face provide a cultural and institutional foundation for an authoritarian state

The Family, Property and Succession Among the Northern Ewe-Speaking People of Ghana.

This thesis is on the law relating to the family, property and succession among the Northern Ewe-speaking people of Ghana. The first Chapter offers a general description of the Ewe in both Ghana and Togo and proceeds to identify the section referred to as the Northern Ewe-speaking people of Ghana. In the second Chapter the political structure is described, showing the area as a congeries of small autonomous chiefdoms, each with its own system of law. In Chapter III the nature of the Ewe family, which is patrilineal, is examined as the unit for purposes of citizenship, succession to hereditary offices, entitlement to ancestral property and assumption of certain obligations. The position of the head of family is considered in Chapter IV where it is submitted that succession to the office is automatic and the holder of the office is accountable but generally irremovable. Chapters V and VI concern interests in land. It is shown that as a rule the respective families hold the paramount title to land, with the dependent interest in the members of the family, and that stool lands as generally understood in Ghana are practically non-existent among the Northern Ewe. In Chapter VII it is explained that, apart from the ancestral family lands, family property is rare among the Northern Ewe. Alienation of interests in property by sale, gift, pledging and tenancy is discussed in Chapters VIII - XII, stating the formalities and the effect of each type of alienation. The law of succession to interests in property is discussed in Chapter XIII. It is shown that succession is not by the family but by individuals as of right and that the interest of a successor is generally that of a purchaser, so that the interest is both alienable and inheritable

The measurement of personality including a description and evaluation of certain tests of personality and character /

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1930. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

A rhetorical analysis of motive attribution in the alternative press

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of Kansas, Speech and Drama, 1974

Transparency of law making and fiscal democracy in the Middle East

Fiscal democracy is the capacity of the legislature to make budgetary choices in response to the emerging needs of citizens. This study indicates that, in Middle Eastern countries, there are specific limitations to fiscal democracy in the process of law-making: most notably the lack of attention to financial impact assessments (FIAs). Without systematic FIAs, mandatory out-of-budget allocations are inadvertently included in public spending, as they do not require parliamentary approval within the regular budgeting process. The low level of effective citizens’ engagement in the process of law-making worsens the situation. Budgetary decisions are not well informed by national priorities and preferences. This study utilizes the dataset of the Open Budget Index (OBI) to measure the quality of the law-making process of the budget law in a sample of Middle Eastern countries. The study concludes with recommendations on mapping the law-making process to increase budget transparency

Transparency of law making and fiscal democracy in the Middle East

Fiscal democracy is the capacity of the legislature to make budgetary choices in response to the emerging needs of citizens. This study indicates that, in Middle Eastern countries, there are specific limitations to fiscal democracy in the process of law-making: most notably the lack of attention to financial impact assessments (FIAs). Without systematic FIAs, mandatory out-of-budget allocations are inadvertently included in public spending, as they do not require parliamentary approval within the regular budgeting process. The low level of effective citizens’ engagement in the process of law-making worsens the situation. Budgetary decisions are not well informed by national priorities and preferences. This study utilizes the dataset of the Open Budget Index (OBI) to measure the quality of the law-making process of the budget law in a sample of Middle Eastern countries. The study concludes with recommendations on mapping the law-making process to increase budget transparency

The dialectics of eros: from Plato to Dante

Though Dante never read Plato's dialogues on love, when examining the texts of Dante one notes the presence of Platonic thought and influence particularly concerning the notion of love. This thesis will focus upon the Platonic notion of eros and how it changes over time, ultimately being integrated into the Christian notion of love as understood by Dante, and how this Platonic influence is instantiated within Dante's poetry. The inherent ambiguity of the concept of love, evident historically through frequent debates concerning its value whether positive, negative or in-between, makes any investigation into the nature of love problematic, often aporetic. One aim of this thesis is to help overcome some of the aporiai of knowledge concerning love through focusing upon one form of love, eros or passionate desire, which we shall use in order to understand love more generally through exploring its points of intersection and overlapping with certain other types of love, each of which emphasizes different aspects of love's character differentiated through culture and period. Significantly eros, as perhaps the most ambiguous type of love, is often characterized negatively. Taking into account Nygren's negative view of eros which he sees as being wholly acquisitive and self-seeking as opposed to the thoroughly selfless Christian agape, we shall consider whether this view tells the full truth about eros. In this endeavour we shall explore the interrelationship of eros and understanding understood as a dialectic directed towards the pursuit of truth, which in both the Platonic and Christian traditions involves the permanent possession of the good, beautiful and true; these converge in Neo-Platonic tradition, forming a unity which in Christianity is identified with God. We shall also explore how various strands of eros relate to and articulate the notion of love of the individual. These explorations cast light on the transformation of Platonic eros by Christian agape into the Latin concept of caritas. In terms of procedure, we shall examine the notion of Platonic eros as presented in the Symposium and the Phaedrus and how this conception is reinterpreted in Dante's Commedia, these texts together acting as a lens which -will enable us better to comprehend the significance of Bros, and of love more generally, through the transformation of eros over time

The natural and rural world in twentieth century British poetry

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Council for National Academic Awards for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyDuring two hundred years of urbanisation and industrialisationg British poetry has often seemed more concerned with the natural and rural world. The thesis uses this paradox to explore two particular aspects of Twentieth Century poetry of the natural azid rural world -'its attitude and orientation towards the actual changing conditions of its subject matter and the significance of this in literary value judgements. To consider these ideological questions in a way that maintains the specificity and creativity of experience and of literatureq Raymond Williams's concept of "structure of feeling" is introduced. In addition, two broad, historical approaches to this poetry are distinguished: the first involves the transformation of pastoral into rural realism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while the second, which dates from the Romantic revival, offers a poetry of personal experience and metaphysical enquiry. In early Twentieth Century poetryq these approaches frequently converge to form a common front against modernism, while simultaneously, particularly in Edward Thomas and DH Lawrence, fresh importance is attached to the idea of nature poetry for metaphysical enquiry. In considering the post-war revival Of nature and rural poetry, the original approaches are redefined in terms of a materialist- /metaphysical polarity. For Hugh MacDiarmid and Ted Hughes, the tension within this polarity is claimed to be especially productive, while in writers like Hopkins and RS Thomas, a basic commitment to metaphysical orthodoxy is seen to be damagingly incompatible with the principles of free imaginative enquiry and the ontological autonomy of nature. The two central questions of the thesis about Twentieth Century poetry of the natural and rural world, those conceining social change and metaphysical enquiry, are related in two ways: through attention to the cultural mediation of poetic language and form and through demonstrating that creative response to the full conditions of life is politically and metaphysically fundamental