Democratic Legitimacy and the Politics of Rights : A comparative analysis of the conceptual relationship between democracy and rights in contemporary political theories

Democratic Legitimacy and the Politics of Rights is a research in normative political theory, based on comparative analysis of contemporary democratic theories, classified roughly as conventional liberal, deliberative democratic and radical democratic. Its focus is on the conceptual relationship between alternative sources of democratic legitimacy: democratic inclusion and liberal rights. The relationship between rights and democracy is studied through the following questions: are rights to be seen as external constraints to democracy or as objects of democratic decision making processes? Are individual rights threatened by public participation in politics; do constitutionally protected rights limit the inclusiveness of democratic processes? Are liberal values such as individuality, autonomy and liberty; and democratic values such as equality, inclusion and popular sovereignty mutually conflictual or supportive? Analyzing feminist critique of liberal discourse, the dissertation also raises the question about Enlightenment ideals in current political debates: are the universal norms of liberal democracy inherently dependent on the rationalist grand narratives of modernity and incompatible with the ideal of diversity? Part I of the thesis introduces the sources of democratic legitimacy as presented in the alternative democratic models. Part II analyses how the relationship between rights and democracy is theorized in them. Part III contains arguments by feminists and radical democrats against the tenets of universalist liberal democratic models and responds to that critique by partly endorsing, partly rejecting it. The central argument promoted in the thesis is that while the deconstruction of modern rationalism indicates that rights are political constructions as opposed to externally given moral constraints to politics, this insight does not delegitimize the politics of universal rights as an inherent part of democratic institutions. The research indicates that democracy and universal individual rights are mutually interdependent rather than oppositional; and that democracy is more dependent on an unconditional protection of universal individual rights when it is conceived as inclusive, participatory and plural; as opposed to robust majoritarian rule. The central concepts are: liberalism, democracy, legitimacy, deliberation, inclusion, equality, diversity, conflict, public sphere, rights, individualism, universalism and contextuality. The authors discussed are e.g. John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Iris Young, Chantal Mouffe and Stephen Holmes. The research focuses on contemporary political theory, but the more classical work of John S. Mill, Benjamin Constant, Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt is also included.

Democracy, Participation, and Deliberation in China : The discussion about democratic centralism in the official Chinese press, 1978-1981

This study examines the Chinese press discussion about democratic centralism in 1978-1981 in newspapers, political journals and academic journals distributed nationwide. It is thus a study of intellectual trends during the Hua Guofeng period and of methods, strategies, and techniques of public political discussion of the time. In addition, this study presents democratic centralism as a comprehensive theory of democracy and evaluates this theory. It compares the Chinese theory of democratic centralism with Western traditions of democracy, not only with the standard liberal theory but also with traditions of participatory and deliberative democracy, in order to evaluate whether the Chinese theory of democratic centralism forms a legitimate theory of democracy. It shows that the Chinese theory comes close to participatory types of democracy and shares a conception of democracy as communication with the theory of deliberative democracy. Therefore, the Chinese experience provides some empirical evidence of the practicability of these traditions of democracy. Simultaneously, this study uses experiences of participatory democracies outside of China to explain some earlier findings about the Chinese practices. This dissertation also compares Chinese theory with some common Western theories and models of Chinese society as well as with Western understandings of Chinese political processes. It thus aims at opening more dialogue between Chinese and Western political theories and understandings about Chinese polity. This study belongs to scholarly traditions of the history of ideas, political philosophy, comparative politics, and China studies. The main finding of this study is that the Chinese theory of democratic centralism is essentially a theory about democracy, but whether its scrupulous practicing alone would be sufficient for making a country a democracy depends on which established definition of democracy one applies and on what kind of democratic deficits are seen as being acceptable within a truly democratic system. Nevertheless, since the Chinese theory of democratic centralism fits well with some established definitions of democracy and since democratic deficits are a reality in all actual democracies, the Chinese themselves are talking about democracy in terms acceptable to Western political philosophy as well.

Rethinking Media Pluralism : A Critique of Theories and Policy Discourses

This study examines different ways in which the concept of media pluralism has been theorized and used in contemporary media policy debates. Access to a broad range of different political views and cultural expressions is often regarded as a self-evident value in both theoretical and political debates on media and democracy. Opinions on the meaning and nature of media pluralism as a theoretical, political or empirical concept, however, are many, and it can easily be adjusted to different political purposes. The study aims to analyse the ambiguities surrounding the concept of media pluralism in two ways: by deconstructing its normative roots from the perspective of democratic theory, and by examining its different uses, definitions and underlying rationalities in current European media policy debates. The first part of the study examines the values and assumptions behind the notion of media pluralism in the context of different theories of democracy and the public sphere. The second part then analyses and assesses the deployment of the concept in contemporary European policy debates on media ownership and public service media. Finally, the study critically evaluates various attempts to create empirical indicators for measuring media pluralism and discusses their normative implications and underlying rationalities. The analysis of contemporary policy debates indicates that the notion of media pluralism has been too readily reduced to an empty catchphrase or conflated with consumer choice and market competition. In this narrow technocratic logic, pluralism is often unreflectively associated with quantitative data in a way that leaves unexamined key questions about social and political values, democracy, and citizenship. The basic argument advanced in the study is that media pluralism needs to be rescued from its depoliticized uses and re-imagined more broadly as a normative value that refers to the distribution of communicative power in the public sphere. Instead of something that could simply be measured through the number of media outlets available, the study argues that media pluralism should be understood in terms of its ability to challenge inequalities in communicative power and create a more democratic public sphere.

An Analysis of the Concept of Citizenship: Legal, Political and Social Dimensions

The thesis aims at analyzing concept of citizenship in political philosophy. The concept of citizenship is a complex one: it does not have a definitive explication, but it nevertheless is a very important category in contemporary world. Citizenship is a powerful ideal, and often the way a person is treated depends on whether he or she has the status of a citizen. Citizenship includes protection of a person’s rights both at home and abroad. It entails legal, political and social dimension: the legal status as a full member of society, the recognition of that status by fellow citizens and acting as a member of society. The thesis discusses these three dimensions. Its objective is to show how all of them, despite being insufficient in some aspects, reach something important about the concept. The main sources of the thesis are Civic Republicanism by Iseult Honohan (Routledge 2002), Republicanism by Philip Pettit (Clarendon Press 1997), and Taking Rights Seriously by Ronald Dworkin (1997). In addition, the historical part of the thesis relies mainly on the works of Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Quentin Skinner, James Pocock and James Tully. The writings of Will Kymlicka, John Rawls, Chantal Mouffe, and Shane Phelan are referred to in the presentation and critique of the liberal tradition of thought. Hannah Arendt and Seyla Benhabib’s analysis of Arendt’s philosophy both address the problematic relations between human rights and nation-states as the main guarantors of rights. The chapter on group rights relies on Peter Jones’ account of corporate and collective rights, after which I continue to Seumas Miller’s essay on the (liberal) account of group rights and their relation to the concept of citizenship. Republicanism and Political Theory (2002) edited by Cécile Laborde and John Maynor is also references. David Miller and Maurizio Viroli represent the more “rooted” version of republicanism. The thesis argues that the full concept of citizenship should be seen as containing legal, political and social dimensions. The concept can be viewed from all of these three angles. The first means that citizenship is connected with certain rights, like the right to vote or stand for election, the right to property and so on. In most societies, the law guarantees these rights to every citizen. Then there is also the social dimension, which can be said to be as important as the legal one: the recognition of equality and identities of others. Finally, there is the political dimension, meaning the importance of citizens’ participation in the society, which is discussed in connection with the contemporary account of republicanism. All these issues are discussed from the point of view of groups demanding for group-specific rights and equal recognition. The challenge with these three aspects of citizenship is, however, that they are difficult to discuss under one heading. Different theories or discourses of citizenship each approach the subject from different starting points, which make reconciling them sometimes hard. The fundamental questions theories try to answer may differ radically depending on the theory. Nevertheless, in order to get the whole image of what the citizenship discourses are about all the aspects deserve to be taken into account.

Shooting from the Wild Zone : A Study of the Chicana Art Photographers Laura Aguilar, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Delilah Montoya, and Kathy Vargas

The dissertation analyzes and elaborates upon the changing map of U.S. ethno-racial formation from the vantage point of North American Studies, multi-disciplinary cultural studies, and the criticism of visual culture. The focus is on four contemporary Mexican American (Chicana) women photographers, whose art production is discussed, on the one hand, in the context of the Euro-American history of photographic genres and, on the other hand, in the context of so-called decolonizing cultural and academic discourses produced by Mexican Americans themselves. The manuscript consists of two parts. Part I outlines the theoretical and methodological domain of the study, positioning it in the interstices of American studies, European postmodern criticism, postcolonial feminist theory, and the theories of visual culture, particularly of art photography. In addition, the main issues and paradigms of Chicano Studies (Mexican American ethnic studies) are introduced. Part II consists of seven essays, each of which discusses rather independently a particular photographic work or a series of photographs, formulating and defending arguments about their meaning, position in the history of photographic genres, and their cultural and socio-political significance. The study closes with a discussion about ethno-racial identity formation and the role of Chicana photography therein - in embodying and reproducing new subjectivities, alternative categories of knowledge, and open ended historical narratives. It is argued that, symbolically, the "Wild Zone" of gendered and race-specific knowledge becomes associated with the body of the mother, a recurrent image in Chicana art works under discussion. Embedded in this image, the construction of an alternative notion of a family thus articulates the parameters of a matrifocal ethno-racial community unified by the proliferation of differences rather than by conformities typical of nationalistic ideologies. While focusing on art photography, the study as a whole simultaneously constructs, from a European vantage point, a "thick" description of Mexican American history, identities, communities, cultural practices, and self-representations about which very little is known in Finland.

Mapinduzi Daima – Revolution Forever : Using the 1964 Revolution in Nationalistic Political Discourses in Zanzibar

This Master's thesis examines two opposite nationalistic discourses on the revolution of Zanzibar. Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), the party in power since the 1964 revolution defends its revolutionary and "African" heritage in the current multi-party system. New nationalists, including among others the main opposition party Civic United Front (CUF), question both the 1964 revolution and the post-revolution period and blame CCM for empty promises, corruption and ethnic discrimination. This study analyzes the role of a significant historical event in the creation of nationalistic ideology and national identity. The 1964 revolution forms the nucleus of various debates related to the history of Zanzibar: slavery, colonialism, racial discrimination and political violence. Representations of these Social constructivist principles form the basis of this study, and central concepts in the theoretical framework are nationalism, national identity, ethnicity and race. I use critical discourse analysis as my research method, lean on the work by Teun A. van Dijk and Norman Fairclough as the most significant researchers in this field. I examine particularly the ways in which linguistic methods, such as stereotypes and metaphors are used to form in- and out-groups ("us" vs. "others"). My material, both in Swahili and English, was collected mainly in Tanzania in the fall of 2007 and from online sources in the spring of 2009. It includes publications by the Zanzibari government between the years of 1964-2000 (12), official speeches for the Revolution Day or the Union Day (12), articles from Tanzanian newspapers from the 1990s until the year of 2009 (15), memoirs and political pamphlets (10), blog posts and opinion pieces from four different websites (8), and interviews or personal communication in Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam and Uppsala (8). Nationalistic rhetoric often creates enemy images by using binary good-bad oppositions. Both discourses in this study build identities on the basis of "otherness" and exclusion, with the intent of emphasizing the particularity of the own group and excluding "evilness" outside the own reference group. These opposite views on the 1964 revolution as the main axis of the history of Zanzibar build different portraits of the nation and Zanzibari-ness (Uzanzibari). CCM still relies on the pre-revolutionary enemy images of Arabs as selfish rulers and cruel slave traders. For CCM, Zanzibar is primarily an "African" nation and a part of Tanzania which is threatened by "Arabs", the outsiders. In contrast, the new nationalists stress the long history of Zanzibar as multi-racial, cosmopolitan and formerly independent country which has its own, separate culture and identity from mainland Tanzanians. Heshima, honour/respect, one of the basic values of Swahili culture, occupies a central role in both discourses: the main party emphasizes that the revolution returned "heshima" to the Zanzibari Africans after centuries of humiliation, whereas the new nationalists claim that ever since the revolution all "non-Africans" have been humiliated and lost their "heshima". According to the new nationalists, true Zanzibari values which include tolerance and harmony between different "races" were lost when the "foreign" revolutionaries arrived from the mainland. Consequently, they see the 1964 revolution as Tanganyikan colonialism which began with the help of Western countries, and maintain that this "colonialism" still continues in the violent multi-party elections.

Readers' resposes versus reader-response theories : An empirical study

This study examines both theoretically an empirically how well the theories of Norman Holland, David Bleich, Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish can explain readers' interpretations of literary texts. The theoretical analysis concentrates on their views on language from the point of view of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. This analysis shows that many of the assumptions related to language in these theories are problematic. The empirical data show that readers often form very similar interpretations. Thus the study challenges the common assumption that literary interpretations tend to be idiosyncratic. The empirical data consists of freely worded written answers to questions on three short stories. The interpretations were made by 27 Finnish university students. Some of the questions addressed issues that were discussed in large parts of the texts, some referred to issues that were mentioned only in passing or implied. The short stories were "The Witch à la Mode" by D. H. Lawrence, "Rain in the Heart" by Peter Taylor and "The Hitchhiking Game" by Milan Kundera. According to Fish, readers create both the formal features of a text and their interpretation of it according to an interpretive strategy. People who agree form an interpretive community. However, a typical answer usually contains ideas repeated by several readers as well as observations not mentioned by anyone else. Therefore it is very difficult to determine which readers belong to the same interpretive community. Moreover, readers with opposing opinions often seem to pay attention to the same textual features and even acknowledge the possibility of an opposing interpretation; therefore they do not seem to create the formal features of the text in different ways. Iser suggests that an interpretation emerges from the interaction between the text and the reader when the reader determines the implications of the text and in this way fills the "gaps" in the text. Iser believes that the text guides the reader, but as he also believes that meaning is on a level beyond words, he cannot explain how the text directs the reader. The similarity in the interpretations and the fact that the agreement is strongest when related to issues that are discussed broadly in the text do, however, support his assumption that readers are guided by the text. In Bleich's view, all interpretations have personal motives and each person has an idiosyncratic language system. The situation where a person learns a word determines the most important meaning it has for that person. In order to uncover the personal etymologies of words, Bleich asks his readers to associate freely on the basis of a text and note down all the personal memories and feelings that the reading experience evokes. Bleich's theory of the idiosyncratic language system seems to rely on a misconceived notion of the role that ostensive definitions have in language use. The readers' responses show that spontaneous associations to personal life seem to colour the readers' interpretations, but such instances are rather rare. According to Holland, an interpretation reflects the reader's identity theme. Language use is regulated by shared rules, but everyone follows the rules in his or her own way. Words mean different things to different people. The problem with this view is that if there is any basis for language use, it seems to be the shared way of following linguistic rules. Wittgenstein suggests that our understanding of words is related to the shared ways of using words and our understanding of human behaviour. This view seems to give better grounds for understanding similarity and differences in literary interpretations than the theories of Holland, Bleich, Fish and Iser.

Self-love and self-liking in the moral and political philosophy of Bernard Mandeville and David Hume

This work offers a novel interpretation of David Hume’s (1711–1776) conception of the conjectural development of civil society and artificial moral institutions. It focuses on the social elements of Hume’s Treatise of human nature (1739–40) and the necessary connection between science of man and politeness, civilised monarchies, social distance and hierarchical structure of civil society. The study incorporates aspects of intellectual history, history of philosophy and book history. In order to understand David Hume’s thinking, the intellectual development of Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) needs to be accounted for. When put into a historical perspective, the moral, political and social components of Treatise of human nature can be read in the context of a philosophical tradition, in which Mandeville plays a pivotal role. A distinctive character of Mandeville and Hume’s account of human nature and moral institutions was the introduction of a simple distinction between self-love and self-liking. The symmetric passions of self-interest and pride can only be controlled by the corresponding moral institutions. This is also the way in which we can say that moral institutions are drawn from human nature. In the case of self-love or self-interest, the corresponding moral institution is justice. Respectively, concerning self-liking or pride the moral institution is politeness. There is an explicit analogy between these moral institutions. If we do not understand this analogy, we do not understand the nature of either justice or politeness. The present work is divided into two parts. In the first part, ‘Intellectual development of Bernard Mandeville’, it is argued that the relevance of the paradigmatic change in Mandeville’s thinking has been missed. It draws a picture of Mandeville turning from the Hobbism of The Fable of the Bees to an original theory of civil society put forward in his later works. In order to make this change more apparent, Mandeville’s career and the publishing history of The Fable of the Bees are examined comprehensively. This interpretation, based partly on previously unknown sources, challenges F. B. Kaye’s influential decision to publish the two parts of The Fable of the Bees as a uniform work of two volumes. The main relevance, however, of the ‘Intellectual development of Mandeville’ is to function as the context for the young Hume. The second part of the work, ‘David Hume and Greatness of mind’, explores in philosophical detail the social theory of the Treatise and politics and the science of man in his Essays. This part will also reveal the relevance of Greatness of mind as a general concept for David Hume’s moral and political philosophy.

History, Transfer, Politics : Five studies on the legacy of Uppsala philosophy

The Uppsala school of Axel Hägerström can be said to have been the last genuinely Swedish philosophical movement. On the other hand, the Swedish analytic tradition is often said to have its roots in Hägerström s thought. This work examines the transformation from Uppsala philosophy to analytic philosophy from an actor-based historical perspective. The aim is to describe how a group of younger scholars (Ingemar Hedenius, Konrad Marc-Wogau, Anders Wedberg, Alf Ross, Herbert Tingsten, Gunnar Myrdal) colonised the legacy of Hägerström and Uppsala philosophy, and faced the challenges they met in trying to reconcile this legacy with the changing philosophical and political currents of the 1930s and 40s. Following Quentin Skinner, the texts are analysed as moves or speech acts in a particular historical context. The thesis consists of five previously published case studies and an introduction. The first study describes how the image of Hägerström as the father of the Swedish analytic tradition was created by a particular faction of younger Uppsala philosophers who (re-) presented the Hägerströmian philosophy as a parallel movement to logical empiricism. The second study examines the confrontations between Uppsala philosophy and logical empiricism in both the editorial board and in the pages of Sweden s leading philosophical journal Theoria. The third study focuses on how the younger generation redescribed Hägerströmian legal philosophical ideas (Scandinavian Legal Realism), while the fourth study discusses how they responded to the accusations of a connection between Hägerström s value nihilistic theory and totalitarianism. Finally, the fifth study examines how the Swedish social scientist and Social Democratic intellectual Gunnar Myrdal tried to reconcile value nihilism with a strong political programme for social reform. The contribution of this thesis to the field consists mainly in a re-evaluation of the role of Uppsala philosophy in the history of Swedish philosophy. From this perspective the Uppsala School was less a collection of certain definite philosophical ideas than an intellectual legacy that was the subject of fierce struggles. Its theories and ideas were redescribed in various ways by individual actors with different philosophical and political intentions.

Double-Edged Imitation : Theories and Practices of Pastiche in Literature

This study concentrates on the contested concept of pastiche in literary studies. It offers the first detailed examination of the history of the concept from its origins in the seventeenth century to the present, showing how pastiche emerged as a critical concept in interaction with the emerging conception of authorial originality and the copyright laws protecting it. One of the key results of this investigation is the contextualisation of the postmodern debate on pastiche. Even though postmodern critics often emphasise the radical novelty of pastiche, they in fact resuscitate older positions and arguments without necessarily reflecting on their historical conditions. This historical background is then used to analyse the distinction between the primarily French conception of pastiche as the imitation of style and the postmodern notion of it as the compilation of different elements. The latter s vagueness and inclusiveness detracts from its value as a critical concept. The study thus concentrates on the notion of stylistic pastiche, challenging the widespread prejudice that it is merely an indication of lack of talent. Because it is multiply based on repetition, pastiche is in fact a highly ambiguous or double-edged practice that calls into question the distinction between repetition and original, thereby undermining the received notion of individual unique authorship as a fundamental aesthetic value. Pastiche does not, however, constitute a radical upheaval of the basic assumptions on which the present institution of literature relies, since, in order to mark its difference, pastiche always refers to a source outside itself against which its difference is measured. Finally, the theoretical analysis of pastiche is applied to literary works. The pastiches written by Marcel Proust demonstrate how it can become an integral part of a writer s poetics: imitation of style is shown to provide Proust with a way of exploring the role of style as a connecting point between inner vision and reality. The pastiches of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Michael Dibdin, Nicholas Meyer and the duo Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr illustrate the functions of pastiche within a genre detective fiction that is itself fundamentally repetitive. A.S. Byatt s Possession and D.M. Thomas s Charlotte use Victorian pastiches to investigate the conditions of literary creation in the age of postmodern suspicion of creativity and individuality. The study thus argues that the concept of pastiche has valuable insights to offer to literary criticism and theory, and that literary pastiches, though often dismissed in reviews and criticism, are a particularly interesting object of study precisely because of their characteristic ambiguity.

Noncommutative Quantum Field Theories and UV/IR Mixing

Our present-day understanding of fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions is based on the Standard Model of particle physics, which relies on quantum gauge field theories. On the other hand, the large scale dynamical behaviour of spacetime is understood via the general theory of relativity of Einstein. The merging of these two complementary aspects of nature, quantum and gravity, is one of the greatest goals of modern fundamental physics, the achievement of which would help us understand the short-distance structure of spacetime, thus shedding light on the events in the singular states of general relativity, such as black holes and the Big Bang, where our current models of nature break down. The formulation of quantum field theories in noncommutative spacetime is an attempt to realize the idea of nonlocality at short distances, which our present understanding of these different aspects of Nature suggests, and consequently to find testable hints of the underlying quantum behaviour of spacetime. The formulation of noncommutative theories encounters various unprecedented problems, which derive from their peculiar inherent nonlocality. Arguably the most serious of these is the so-called UV/IR mixing, which makes the derivation of observable predictions especially hard by causing new tedious divergencies, to which our previous well-developed renormalization methods for quantum field theories do not apply. In the thesis I review the basic mathematical concepts of noncommutative spacetime, different formulations of quantum field theories in the context, and the theoretical understanding of UV/IR mixing. In particular, I put forward new results to be published, which show that also the theory of quantum electrodynamics in noncommutative spacetime defined via Seiberg-Witten map suffers from UV/IR mixing. Finally, I review some of the most promising ways to overcome the problem. The final solution remains a challenge for the future.

A Soul for Europe? : Contributions of European Churches to the Forum of the Convention on the Future of Europe

The aim of this research was to study how European churches contributed to the shaping of the Constitutional Treaty during the work of the Convention on the future of Europe through the public discussion forum, established by the Convention for this specific purpose in the years 2002 2003. In particular, this study sought to uncover the areas of interest brought up by the churches in their contributions, the objectives they pursued, and the approaches and arguments they employed to reach those objectives. The data for this study comprised all official submissions by European churches and church alliances to the Forum, totalling 21 contributions. A central criterion for inclusion of the data was that the organization can reasonably be assumed to represent the official position of one or more Christian churches within the European Union before the 2004 expansion. The contributing churches and organizations represent the vast majority of Christians in Europe. The data was analyzed using primarily qualitative content analysis. The research approach was a combination of abductive and inductive inference. Based on the analysis a two-fold theoretical framework was adopted, focusing on theories of public religion, secularization and deprivatization of religion, and of legitimation and collective identity. The main areas of interest found in the contributions of the churches were the value foundation of the European Union, which is demanded to coherently permeate all policies and actions of the EU, and the social dimension of Europe, which must be given equal status to the political and economic dimensions. In both areas the churches claim significant experience and expertise, which they want to see recognized in the Constituional Treaty through a formally guaranteed status for churches and religious communities in the EU. In their contributions the churches show a strong determination to secure a significant role for both religion and religious communities in the public life of Europe. As for the role of religion, they point out to its potential as a motivating and cohesive force in society and as a building block for a collective European identity, which is still missing. Churches also pursue a substantial public role for themselves beyond the spiritual dimension, permeating the secular areas of the social, political and economic dimensions. The arguments in suppport of such role are embedded in their interest and expertise in spiritual and other fundamental values and their broad involvement in providing social services. In this context churches use expressions inclusive of all religions and convictions, albeit clearly advocating the primacy of Europe's Christian heritage. Based on their historical role, their social involvement and their spiritual mission they use the public debate on the Constitutional Treaty to gain formal legitimacy for the public status of religion and religious communities, both nationally and on a European level, through appropriate provisions in the constitutional text. In return they offer the European Union ways of improving its own legitimacy by reducing the democratic and ideological deficit of the EU and advancing the development a collective European identity.

EU Multi-level Governance in the Making - The Community Initiative LEADER+ in Finland and Germany

In order to fully understand the process of European integration it is of paramount importance to consider developments at the sub-national and local level. EU integration scholars shifted their attention to the local level only at the beginning of the 1990s with the concept of multi-level governance (MLG). While MLG is the first concept to scrutinise the position of local levels of public administration and other actors within the EU polity, I perceive it as too optimistic in the degree of influence it ascribes to local levels. Thus, learning from and combining MLG with other concepts, such as structural constructivism, helps to reveal some of the hidden aspects of EU integration and paint a more realistic picture of multi-level interaction. This thesis also answers the call for more case studies in order to conceptualise MLG further. After a critical study of theories and concepts of European integration, above all, MLG, I will analyse sub-national and local government in Finland and Germany. I show how the sub-national level and local governments are embedded in the EU s multi-level structure of governance and how, through EU integration, those levels have been empowered but also how their scope of action has partially decreased. After theoretical and institutional contextualisation, I present the results of my empirical study of the EU s Community Initiative LEADER+. LEADER stands for Liaison Entre Actions de Développement de l'Économie Rurale , and aims at improving the economic conditions in Europe s rural areas. I was interested in how different actors construct and shape EU financed rural development, especially in how local actors organised in so-called local action groups (LAGs) cooperate with other administrative units within the LEADER+ administrative chain. I also examined intra-institutional relations within those groups, in order to find out who are the most influential and powerful actors within them. Empirical data on the Finnish and German LAGs was first gathered through a survey, which was then supplemented and completed by interviewing LAG members, LAG-managers, several civil servants from Finnish and German decision-making and managing authorities and a civil servant from the EU Commission. My main argument is that in both Germany and Finland, the Community Initiative LEADER+ offered a space for multi-level interaction and local-level involvement, a space that on the one hand consists of highly motivated people actively contributing to the improvement of the quality of life and economy in Europe s countryside but which is dependent and also restricted by national administrative practices, implementation approaches and cultures on the other. In Finland, the principle of tri-partition (kolmikantaperiaatte) in organising the executive committees of LAGs is very noticeable. In comparison to Germany, for instance, the representation of public administration in those committees is much more limited due to this principle. Furthermore, the mobilisation of local residents and the bringing together of actors from the local area with different social and institutional backgrounds to become an active part of LEADER+ was more successful in Finland than in Germany. Tri-partition as applied in Finland should serve as a model for similar policies in other EU member states. EU integration changed the formal and informal inter-institutional relations linking the different levels of government. The third sector including non-governmental institutions and interest groups gained access to policy-making processes and increasingly interact with government institutions at all levels of public administration. These developments do not necessarily result in the empowering of the local level.

Imagination and diversity in the philosophy of Hobbes

This dissertation is a study of some aspects of theoretical philosophy of the early modern thinker Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). The focal point of the work is Hobbes s conception of imagination, which is discussed from both a systematic and a historical point of view, as well as in the light of contemporary scholarship. I argue that though there are significant similarities between the view of Hobbes and that of his predecessors, he gives a novel theory of imagination, which clarifies not only early modern discussions on human nature, knowledge, science, and literary criticism, but above all his own versatile philosophy. The prologue of the dissertation introduces methodological principles and gives critical remarks on the standard view of Hobbes. In Chapter II, I discuss the prominent theories of imagination before Hobbes and link them to his account. I argue that though Hobbes adopted the Aristotelian framework, his view is not reduced to it, as he borrows from various sources, for instance, from the Stoics and from Renaissance thought. Chapters III and IV form the psychological part of the work. In the Chapter III I argue that imagination, not sense, is central in the basic cognitive operations of the mind and that imagination has a decisive role in Hobbes s theory of motivation. The Chapter IV concentrates on various questions of Hobbes s philosophy of language. The chapter ends with a defence of a less naturalistic reading of Hobbes s theory of human nature. Chapters V and VI form the epistemological part of the work. I suggest, contrary to what has been recently claimed, that though Hobbes s ideas of good literary style do have a point of contact with his philosophy (e.g. the psychology of creative process), his ideas in the field are independent of his project of demonstrative political science. Instead I argue that the novelty of his major political work, Leviathan (1651), is based on a new theory of knowledge which he continued to develop in the post-Leviathan works. Chapter VII seeks to connect the more theoretical conclusions of Chapters V and VI to Hobbes's idea(l) of science as well as to his philosophical practice. On the basis of Hobbes s own writings as well as some historical examinations, I argue that method is not an apt way to conceptualise Hobbes s philosophical practice. Contemporary readings of Hobbes s theory of science are critically discussed and the chapter ends with an analysis of Hobbes s actual argumentation. In addition to the concluding remarks, the epilogue suggest three things: first, imagination is central when trying to understand Hobbes s versatile philosophy; second, that it is misleading to depict Hobbes as a simple materialist, mechanist, and empiricist; and, third, that in terms of imagination his influence on early modern thought has not been fully appreciated.