Stetson, Dorothy M.

Since 1991 the world has witnessed dramatic transformations within the former republics of the Soviet Union. Two of these former republics, the neighboring states of Azerbaijan and Armenia, are undergoing conflicts between nationalist discourse and the entrenched policies of the former Soviet Union. These conflicts are particularly important for the women in these countries. For over seventy years, the Soviets attempted to replace traditional norms and rules about the proper and expected roles of women and men in these societies with a Marxist-Leninist model of gender relations. The study applies two models, the Nationalist-Traditional and Socialist-Modernization models, to the cases of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Through the use of the comparative method, these models assist in describing the ideology of the gender regimes in Azerbaijan and Armenia, comparing the similarities and differences of the gender regimes, and explaining the patterns found in these gender regimes.

This thesis examines the role of local Protestant churches in family and gender role politics. Broward County churches are studied as interest groups participating in a network of religious institutions concerned with public policy affecting gender roles, family, and women in society. A mail questionnaire sent to Broward County ministers of Protestant churches yielded important data about patterns and methods of political participation of churches. Chi square and difference between means analysis is used to determine which institutional and ministerial characteristics are the best predictors of local church activism on the issues of child care, abortion, contraception information in public schools, gay rights, and creationism.

This paper explores the phenomenon of urban insurgent warfare. A case study concerning the use of urban
insurgent and counter-urban insurgent warfare in Palestine
by the British Mandatory Government and Jewish urban insurgent
organizations (the Irgun Zvei Leumi and the Lohmey
Heruth Israel) from 1943 to 1948 is employed as a means to
both test and create hypotheses concerning the use of
urban insurgent and counter-insurgent warfare. The Palestine case is reviewed and then classified
within the terminology of revolutionary change. The terms
revolution, revolutionary war, guerrilla warfare and insurgent
terrorism are defined for the above purpose. T he
Palestine case is shown to be an example of urban guerrilla
revolutionary warfare. The traditional hypothesis concerning the ability
of an urban insurgent organization to operate against the
repressive abilities of a modern government is presented
and shown to be in contradiction to the historical data
of the Palestine case. New hypotheses are then formulated
to account for the events of the Palestine case. The
Palestine case is analyzed as to both the reasons for the
failure of the governmental counter-urban insurgent campaign and the reasons for the success of urban insurgent
actions in Palestine.

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act devolved much of the authority for welfare policymaking to the state governments. The goal was to promote variation in welfare policies in order to find the most effective way to keep low-income families in the work force and deter teenage pregnancy and family breakup. Without federal entitlement and federal oversight, black populations may be subject to more restrictive policies and may become the victims of welfare racism. This study examines variation in the generosity of state welfare policies and assesses the role of racism in welfare policy outcomes. This is done using a regression analysis that tests the relationship between the generosity of state welfare policies and state social, political and cultural characteristics. The analysis shows that one area of policy---personal requirements---subjects blacks to more restrictive rules but the overall generosity of welfare programs is most significantly affected by the professionalism of state bureaucrats.

This thesis compares the extent of democratization in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. To compare the degree of democracy, I use four indicators: (1) fair and competitive elections; (2) interest groups' access to policy making; (3) policy responsiveness to social needs; and (4) human rights. To explain any differences in the degree of democratization between these two countries, I examine four independent variables: (1) political experiences in colonial societies and during independence from British rule; (2) standard of education; (3) economic development; and (4) the type of political economy. After testing these variables, I found that Trinidad has moved faster in establishing democracy than Guyana because of differences in ethnic conflict at independence, type of political economy, and overall wealth.