Interaction and Persuasion:An analysis of the use of rhetorical devices in Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Party Conference, on September 25, 2006

This essay has identified and analysed rhetorical devices in Gordon Brown’s speech delivered at the Labour Party conference on September 25, 2006. The aim of the study was to identify specific rhetorical devices which are described as interactional resources, analyse their uses and discuss possible effects that they may have when included in a political speech. The results are based on my own interpretations but are supported by information provided in current literature by analysts and researchers of rhetoric use. The result findings could probably serve as evidence of the need for better understanding of the devices used by politicians in their relentless endeavours to influence audience decisions.

Al-Mahdi - Gestalt och budskap : En litteraturstudie jämförande sudanesisk Mahdi och indisk Mahdi inom islam

Followers of three world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are waiting for the Messiah. Muslims are even waiting for aspiritual leader al-Mahdi. Two different persons claimed the title of al-Mahdi, at the end of the nineteenth century. Theyappeared almost at the same time, at the totally different places of the earth, with a completely different message and underthe rule of the British colonial power. The aim of the study is to compare the both religious figures, Mirza Ghulam Ahmadfrom India and Muhammad Ahmad from Sudan regarding their different messages, to illustrate the social, political andreligious factors that lead to the entirely different profile and image of these two men and how their organizations havedeveloped after their death up till today. The result shows that the Sudanese Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad claimed hisMahdiship in the year 1881. He became a political leader in a time when Sudan was under the rule of a colonial power. Hetook advantage of the religion for personal purposes and tried to liberate his native country Sudan. The contemporaryMuslim clergy criticized him for his claim because the content of the Hadith traditions did not support his claim ofMahdiship. He maintained his sole right for the interpretation of religion and of the laws of Sharia. He made changes even inthe chief pillars of Islam by asserting that Jehad with sword was more imperative than the pilgrimage journey to Mecca. Heasserted that the Prophet Muhammad himself had entrusted him to launch the holy war against the non-believers. He hadimmense ambitions which were never fulfilled since he suddenly died four years after his claim for Mahdiship, in June 1885.This day his followers are organized as a political party in Sudan with a modest roll in the Sudanese politics. The IndianMahdi Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed in 1889 to be Mahdi, Mujaddid, Muhaddas, Messiah and a Prophet at a time of socialand political peace, though Islam as a religion was firmly pushed by the Hindu and Christian missionaries. He had no politicalambitions at all and was utterly loyal to the British colonial power. His mission was to crush the Cross and to demonstrateIslam’s excellence over all the religions of the world through overwhelming arguments. He proclaimed that Jesus was humanand a Prophet and not the son of God. Jesus survived from the cross and died a natural death after he had lived for manyyears. Ahmad claimed that God had commanded him to put stop to the religious wars. The contemporary Muslim clergyblamed him for being an imposter, melancholic and hypochondriac who had self invented the divine revelations. He died year1908, nineteen years after his claim and the communion he found is established today in more than hundred countries of theworld. Reasons for the breakdown of mission of the Sudanese Mahdi were that his objectives were political and he challengedthe colonial power with the sword. Another decisive factor was his sudden death merely four years after the beginning of hismission. Reasons for the success of Indian Mahdi were that his objectives were purely religious and he was wholly loyal to theforeign government. He survived nineteen years after the beginning of his mission which made it possible for him to create acommunion based on solid grounds. His followers continued on the same path and never engaged in local politics where everthey lived. For further studies it will be of great interest to study the life of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and objectively examine thearguments he presented in support of his divine appointment. Furthermore it is enriching to study the organization andactivities of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community to explore if they are in accordance with the basic principles of Ahmad.

Government spending and unemployment : An empirical study on Sweden, 1994-2012

The aim of the study was to see if any relationship between government spending andunemployment could be empirically found. To test if government spending affectsunemployment, a statistical model was applied on data from Sweden. The data was quarterlydata from the year 1994 until 2012, unit-root test were conducted and the variables wheretransformed to its first-difference so ensure stationarity. This transformation changed thevariables to growth rates. This meant that the interpretation deviated a little from the originalgoal. Other studies reviewed indicate that when government spending increases and/or taxesdecreases output increases. Studies show that unemployment decreases when governmentspending/GDP ratio increases. Some studies also indicated that with an already largegovernment sector increasing the spending it could have negative effect on output. The modelwas a VAR-model with unemployment, output, interest rate, taxes and government spending.Also included in the model were a linear and three quarterly dummies. The model used 7lags. The result was not statistically significant for most lags but indicated that as governmentspending growth rate increases holding everything else constant unemployment growth rateincreases. The result for taxes was even less statistically significant and indicates norelationship with unemployment. Post-estimation test indicates that there were problems withnon-normality in the model. So the results should be interpreted with some scepticism.

The sustainability revolution : A societal paradigm shift - ethos, innovation, government transformation

The Sustainability revolution: A societal paradigm shift – ethos, innovation, governance transformation This paper identifies several key mechanisms that underlie major paradigm shifts. After identifying four such mechanisms, the article focuses on one type of transformation which has a prominent place in the sustainability revolution that the article argues is now taking place. The transformation is piecemeal, incremental, diffuse – in earlier writings referred to as ”organic”. This is a more encompassing notion than grassroots, since the innovation and transformation processes may be launched and developed at multiple levels through diverse mechanisms of discovery and development. Major features of the sustainability revolution are identified and comparisons made to the industrial revolution.

Essays on growth and environment

This thesis consists of a summary and four self-contained papers. Paper [I] Following the 1987 report by The World Commission on Environment and Development, the genuine saving has come to play a key role in the context of sustainable development, and the World Bank regularly publishes numbers for genuine saving on a national basis. However, these numbers are typically calculated as if the tax system is non-distortionary. This paper presents an analogue to genuine saving in a second best economy, where the government raises revenue by means of distortionary taxation. We show how the social cost of public debt, which depends on the marginal excess burden, ought to be reflected in the genuine saving. We also illustrate by presenting calculations for Greece, Japan, Portugal, U.K., U.S. and OECD average, showing that the numbers published by the World Bank are likely to be biased and may even give incorrect information as to whether the economy is locally sustainable. Paper [II] This paper examines the relationships among per capita CO2 emissions, per capita GDP and international trade based on panel data spanning the period 1960-2008 for 150 countries. A distinction is also made between OECD and Non-OECD countries to capture the differences of this relationship between developed and developing economies. We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests, and estimate a panel error correction model. The results from the error correction model suggest that there are long-term relationships between the variables for the whole sample and for Non-OECD countries. Finally, Granger causality tests show that there is bi-directional short-term causality between per capita GDP and international trade for the whole sample and between per capita GDP and CO2 emissions for OECD countries. Paper [III] Fundamental questions in economics are why some regions are richer than others, why their growth rates differ, whether their growth rates tend to converge, and what key factors contribute to explain economic growth. This paper deals with the average income growth, net migration, and changes in unemployment rates at the municipal level in Sweden. The aim is to explore in depth the effects of possible underlying determinants with a particular focus on local policy variables. The analysis is based on a three-equation model. Our results show, among other things, that increases in the local public expenditure and income taxe rate have negative effects on subsequent income income growth. In addition, the results show conditional convergence, i.e. that the average income among the municipal residents tends to grow more rapidly in relatively poor local jurisdictions than in initially “richer” jurisdictions, conditional on the other explanatory variables. Paper [IV] This paper explores the relationship between income growth and income inequality using data at the municipal level in Sweden for the period 1992-2007. We estimate a fixed effects panel data growth model, where the within-municipality income inequality is one of the explanatory variables. Different inequality measures (Gini coefficient, top income shares, and measures of inequality in the lower and upper part of the income distribution) are examined. We find a positive and significant relationship between income growth and income inequality measured as the Gini coefficient and top income shares, respectively. In addition, while inequality in the upper part of the income distribution is positively associated with the income growth rate, inequality in the lower part of the income distribution seems to be negatively related to the income growth. Our findings also suggest that increased income inequality enhances growth more in municipalities with a high level of average income than in municipalities with a low level of average income.

Informal sanctions and conditional cooperation: : A natural experiment on voluntary contributions to a public good.

In a natural experiment, this paper studies the impact of an informal sanctioning mechanism on individuals’ voluntary contribution to a public good. Cross-country skiers’ actual cash contributions in two ski resorts, one with and one without an informal sanctioning system, are used. I find the contributing share to be higher in the informal sanctioning system (79 percent) than in the non-sanctioning system (36 percent). Previous studies in one-shot public good situations have found an increasing conditional contribution (CC) function, i.e. the relationship between expected average contributions of other group members and the individual’s own contribution. In contrast, the present results suggest that the CC-function in the non-sanctioning system is non-increasing at high perceived levels of others’ contribution. This relationship deserves further testing in lab.

Usability of government websites in Uganda

Government websites offer great benefits to citizens and governments. Such benefits, however,cannot be realized if websites are unusable. This study investigates usability of government websites in Uganda.Using the feature investigation method, the study evaluated four Ugandan government websites according tothree perspectives. Results show that websites are partially usable in the design layout and navigationperspectives but are rather weak in stating legal policies. Evaluation results provide the Ugandan governmentwith a clear picture of what needs to be improved according to international website design standards. Moreover,the parsimonious evaluation framework proposed in the research is useful for any country that wants to do aquick and easy evaluation of their government websites.

Fitting conditional and simultaneous autoregressive spatial models in hglm

We present a new version (> 2.0) of the hglm package for fitting hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLMs) with spatially correlated random effects. CAR() and SAR() families for conditional and simultaneous autoregressive random effects were implemented. Eigen decomposition of the matrix describing the spatial structure (e.g., the neighborhood matrix) was used to transform the CAR/SAR random effects into an independent, but eteroscedastic, Gaussian random effect. A linear predictor is fitted for the random effect variance to estimate the parameters in the CAR and SAR models. This gives a computationally efficient algorithm for moderately sized problems.

Ukrainas konstitutionella sicksackande : Regimförändring och partiutveckling under semipresidentialism

Ukraine has repeatedly shifted between the two sub-types of semi-presidentialism, i.e. between premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism. The aim of this article is to discuss to what extent theoretical arguments against premier-presidential and president-parliamentary systems are relevant for understanding the shifting directions of the Ukrainian regime. As a point of departure, I formulate three main claims from the literature: 1) “President-parliamentarism is less conducive to democratization than premier-presidentialism.”; 2) “Semi-presidentialism in both its variants have built-in incitements for intra-executive conflict between the president and the prime minister.”; 3) “Semi-presidentialism in general, and president-parliamentarism in particular, encourages presidentialization of political parties.” I conclude from the study’s empirical overview that the president-parliamentary system– the constitutional arrangement with the most dismal record of democratization – has been instrumental in strengthening presidential dominance and authoritarian tendencies. The premier-presidential period 2006–2010 was by no means smooth and stable, but the presidential dominance weakened and the survival of the government was firmly anchored in the parliament. During this period, there were also indications of a gradual strengthening of institutional capacity among the main political parties and the parliament began to emerge as a significant political arena.