Never Ending Revolutions

This essay will review two books that describe and explain modern revolutions. First one is Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change edited by Jack A. Goldstone, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev. The book is a massive collection of 41 diverse chapters from numerous contributors. The book takes on almost every aspect of revolutionary theory and addresses quite a few of very recent revolutionary events, as well as many older ones. Second book is New Wave of Revolutions in the MENA Region. A Comparative Perspective edited by Leonid Issaev and Andrey Korotayev. The book contains 12 chapters from various contributors, each dedicated to a revolutionary episode in a country from the Middle East and Northern Africa region. The book provides an overview of the revolutionary processes in the region that shook the world several years ago with its rapid and unexpected domino-like revolutions. The book demonstrates that revolutions are ongoing in this part of the world

Developing sixth form students understanding of the relationships between environment and development issues.

The focus of the research for this thesis is the development\ud of critical pedagogy for a greater understanding of\ud environment/development issues among sixth form A Level\ud geography students. The thesis first considers the concept\ud of sustainable development which can provide a framework\ud for supporting the close integration of environment and\ud development issues. Caution is necessary, however, given\ud the various interests it serves and resulting\ud contradictions inherent in proposed radical change within\ud traditional economic, social and political structures.\ud Within this context student perceptions of\ud environment/development issues were investigated using\ud phenomenography as a methodology. However, a critique of\ud the methodology was necessary, given contradictions in\ud accepting multiple realities of phenomena based on\ud conceptualisation through experience while also seeking a\ud limited number of categories of description of phenomena.\ud Out of the action research undertaken, a curriculum module\ud based on critical pedagogy (influenced by critical theory)\ud was developed to encourage critical thinking by students on\ud a case study example of an environment/development issue.\ud The research shows that the students could perceive\ud environment/development issues as complex inter-related\ud phenomena, but only to a limited extent did it enable them\ud to be confident in challenging systems which perpetuate or\ud exacerbate some of the problems related to the issues

Broadcasting in Saudi Arabia in the era of globalization : a study of local constraints on television development

This study examines the reasons for the Saudi media mdustry's dependence on imported foreign productions. In a departure from traditional dependency theory, which emphasises the role of external factors in the context of the world system, this study explains the state of dependency and underdevelopment in a more locally grounded analysis which evaluates the role of Saudi media policies and regulatory functions in perpetuatmg this dependency status. Two methodologies were applied, firstly, content analyses of a two-week period of Saudi television programming on Channel 1 were earned out to examine the quantity and quality of both local and imported television fare in terms of genre and format, Secondly, mterviews were conducted with Saudi media officials, media pohcy makers, and mdependent local producers to ascertain, from their perspective, what exactly constrains the Saudi media industry and limits its potential, and why the Saudi media is dependent on imported television fare. The results of the content analyses and interviews showed that political, professional and economic constraints handicap STV's performance. This has led to output which is considered to be irrelevant to the needs and mterests of the Saudi viewing population. It has also led to an increase in imported foreign programming and DBS populanty, thus creating a cause of concern among culturalists and Islamists who object to content which, they argue, conflicts with the basic principles of the Islamic faith. Recommendations are proposed to Saudi media policy makers in order to counteract the foreign competition and enhance mdigenous, self-reliant development

Arms and influence in Saudi Arabia/United States relations, 1973-1983

This thesis investigates empirically the realist argument that the United States arms transfers produced political influence on Saudi Arabia's foreign policy behaviour between 1973 and 1983. Within six chapters I set out the conditions and interaction of certain variables which map the contours implied in my title. In my Introduction I set out the aims, purposes and sources of the thesis. Against realism as purely a power model, I provide a reading of politics adequate to reality entailing flexibility of understanding and judgment by decision-makers. Chapter One applies the model to foreign-policy analysis. Turning to influence, I argue that it is as much a pattern of historical relations between states as a pattern of synchronic inter-state relations. The arms/influence problem is determined within a national interest centred concept of foreign policy. Chapter Two brings us to the main empirical material. Here I examine four dimensions of the arms transfer process from the supply side, (i) motives, (ii) legal instruments, (iii) the due process involved in pre-1973, (iv) the nature of the historical relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia pre-1973. Chapter Three performs a similar analysis, but for the post-1973 period. The three arms sales are introduced. Chapters Two and Three concentrate on the supply side, Chapters Four and Five take also into account the demand side. I review the historical development of Saudi security policy in terms of internal and regional problems. The last section details the military and strategical impact of the three major arms deals on Saudi security. Chapter Five relates the supply side to the demand side, showing that despite the three major arms deals, Saudi Arabia has not co-operated automatically with US expectations. This lack of cooperation shows the basic incoherence in the US arms policy, especially in the Reagan era. This incoherence is not so much between Executive and Legislature, as the executive's belief in a direct relation of arms to influence, even though there is no adequate correlation. The conclusion argues that the 'crude realism' of the US executive - arms procures influence directly - has to be more flexible in US/Saudi Arabian arms relations. The US decision-makers need a greater flexibility of approach and understanding, and a more sophisticated grasp of the Saudi Arabian/US arms relation

A regional power: United States' policy in the Indian Ocean and the definition of national security 1970-1980.

This study explores the content, context and contradictions in the making of United States' policy for the Indian Ocean region during the decade of the 1970's. In approaching this undertaking, the study will focus on the strategic dimension to policy from both an historical and an analytic perspective. The work explores three major themes: first, that the need to reverse a perceived decline in U. S. power constituted a common ground for U. S. administrations' during the 1970's; secondly, that the approach to this objective found a critical geopolitical focus in the Middle East and Northern Indian Ocean region; and thirdly, that the modalities of regional engagement redefined, in turn, the nature of regional multipolarity . The principal dilemma to be explored for U. S. policy concems the reconciliation of the rising importance of the region to the United States with diminishing U. S. leverage, in an era of diffusion of power and emergent strategic bipolarity. In methodological terms, the research design adapts the controlled comparison case study model developed by Alexander George amongst others. In this context, the class of events under scrutiny is policy - broadly defined - for the Indian Ocean region under differing strategic concepts, with a focus on bureaucratic interaction, organizational process, and military posture. The parallel analysis of macroscopic processes in world economics, inter-state relations and the central balance provides a conjunctural setting for a structured, focused, comparison of source material drawn from Congressional Hearings, policy documentation, reports, interviews and internal departmental and intelligence memoranda. For the source material itself, the research programme has accessed much material recently declassified under FOI legislation and on record in the National Archives, the National Security Archives and the Nixon Presidential library. The ordering of the work is as follows: for the six major chapters, chapter one locates the origins of United States' strategic interest in the Indian Ocean within a critical account of U. S. relations with the existing British power. Chapter's two and three commence the main historical part of the work in considering the Indian Ocean policy of the Nixon administration, in terms of the local application of the 'Nixon Doctrine'. Here, the objectives and restraints for U. S. policy are assessed with reference to two major themes of this study, great power strategic parity and regional multipolarity. These themes are referenced to signal historical developments in the region - the withdrawal of British forces, the changes in the world oil market and the 1971 India-Pakistan and 1973 Middle East wars. The emerging strategic focus on the Indian Ocean for the Ford administration is taken up in chapter four within the parallel perspectives of U. S. military posture and the evolving distribution of power in the region itself. This context leads into the Indian Ocean policies of the Carter administration. Chapter five provides an overview of the U. S. -Soviet naval arms limitation talks (NALT) of 1977-8, while chapter six undertakes a three part exposition of the 'Carter Doctrine'. In this, the emergence of the South West Asia/Indian Ocean region as the focus of great power competition is located within analysis of the Iranian revolution, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. Although aspects of U. S. regional policy have been subject to a substantial literature, the stance taken here combines an historical analysis with a parallel essay at synthesis -a perspective that locates the region within the overall cast of U. S. national security policy. The study posits a strategic determination for the Indian Ocean policy framework, one whose unifying process accentuated - pari passu - the differentiation of means - In these terms, it concludes that a differentiation of ends, and notably, those involving effective disengagement from the Indian Ocean, was displaced as a possible option

Framing Threat, Mobilizing Violence. Micro-Mechanisms of Conflict Escalation in Yemen

Why do some opposition movements escalate into armed conflict while others perdure non-violently under very similar conditions? In order to account for this variance, the dissertation proposes to transcend the limitations of existing structural theories within civil war studies by including the ‘framing approach’ as developed in social movement studies. Focusing on the cognitive level, this approach accentuates and elucidates the agency component and the interactive dynamics of the construction and negotiation of meaning which remain a ‘black box’ in current models. Shared meaning, which is constructed by collective action frames (i.e. schemata of interpretation) ̵̶ so the core argument ̵̶ mediates between structural conditions and collective action. These frames are developed, communicated, and contested by leaders, and fulfil a diagnostic, a prognostic, and a motivational function: They define a problem, suggest a pathway towards a solution (i.e. violent or non-violent), and mobilize followers. Depending on their content and their successful resonance among movement adherents, corresponding strategies are taken up. Within a most-similar case design, the dissertation analyzes two political movements in contemporary Yemen: The so-called ‘Houthis’ in the North of the country, who led a rebellion between 2004 and 2015, and the ‘Hirak’ movement in Southern Yemen, which since 2006 has been pursuing a strategy of non-violence in its struggle for independence. Embedded in an in-depth contextualization of the respective movements’ origins and the general conditions, the dissertation identifies and describes the respective collective action frames, establishes why and how strategic movement actors constructed them in their specific particularity, and relates this to the question of why constituents take certain forms of action. The findings assert the theoretical contribution of an integrative approach: It could be established how under conditions which would have allowed for armed conflict in both cases, distinct collective action frames led to the observed differences in behavior between the two movements. Solely on the basis of established structural approaches of civil war studies, this variation would have remained obscure. The inclusion of a framing perspective into a model of conflict escalation therefore proves rewarding. The Digital Appendix can be requested from the author