In June 2000, the Thai Ministry of Interior, announced that 120,000 hilltribe children were stateless in Thailand, even though they were entitled to citizenship. This was just the 'tip of the iceberg' of a greater problem, which affects approximately half a million people, and the society as a whole. More hilltribe children are making a livelihood from drug dealing, prostitution, and stree

The purpose of this study has been to explore the impact of everyday life and the family on women's political participation in India. This has been done by analysing the political life stories of nine women who have all been elected to the local governance system, Panchayati Raj, in the South Indian state of Karnataka. The family often plays a dual role in relation to women's political par

Microfinance has a unique position in China. Currently striving for recognition as a tool for poverty alleviation, microfinance programs in China especially the NGO types are competing with local rural credit cooperatives and other existing financial infrastructures to provide similar services. NGO microfinance programs are currently at crossroads as to where and how their existing organizations w

Like most countries in the world, China is facing a rapid aging population and the traditional Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) pension model is urgent to be reformed. At present, three hierarchies have formed in current pension system, namely basic pension system based on combining social pooling with individual accounts, supplementary pension system by establishing Enterprise Annuity (EA) system and volunta

The agricultural sector world wide has undergone a drastic change through the integration of the local markets to the global ones with the advent of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the main propagator of international trade. The third world in general has stood to suffer with this emergence of neo-liberal market fundamentalism, the consequence of which has been a major crisis in the farm secto

The purpose of this research was to find how young women in Bangkok spend their money, especially in terms of fashion consumption in the new context of globalized consumer society. The research was conducted through general observations and interviews with designers and fashion shop owners in order to find out their views of fashion and consumption among the young women in the city as well as thro

Anyone following trends in international business and economics is aware of the rise of China as an economic giant. As a part of its development strategy China, in the late 1970s, adopted a strict birthing policy to curb population growth. This has resulted in China having become an ageing society. In this thesis a case study of China's political economy was used to try and explain in what way

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the Olympic Games? influence on Beijing's infrastructure improvement. The research question is how the Olympic Games make the host city accomplish change. The thesis begins with an introduction of the Olympic Games and Beijing's development. The theory here was that a Mega-event is an opportunity for a host city to improve itself, and the improveme

This thesis provided new explanations of declining fertility in Japan since 1990s. It could be seen as an extension of previous researches in this field, since it took a look at males' changes of lifestyles since economic recession era concerning fertility issue which was ignored by previous researches in this field. In this research, I combined qualitative and quantitative analysis to picture

This text attempts to describe and analyze the haptic relations between non-official, i.e. independent, cinema and market-led urbanization in contemporary China. From the theoretical context of recent scholarship on Visual Culture and film history, it's argued that motion pictures and the Visual are in fact crucial to modernization. Using the theories of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau th

This thesis attempts to understand the ways in which popular film is integrated into the everyday lives of urban middle class youth in India. Approaching the study of film through an audience reception approach, I engaged in participant observation and interviews during a fieldwork period in New Delhi in order to better understand how a young audience might negotiate the fantasy of filmic images i

Vietnam's entry to market economy as a result of its "doi moi" programme of reform, shifted the responsibility of education financing to households. Although primary education in Vietnam should be free of charge, direct and indirect costs of education cause a great burden on household economy. This study elaborates on the extent to which access to education depends on the income of t

In 21 century, with the trend of globalization, both large and small organizations are facing an environment characterized by extremely high level of competition. In order to be competitive, China's managers are endeavouring to try every effort to improve employees' performance within sound organizational culture, thus to improve organizations' competence. Yet as a matter of fact, sinc

This study seeks to understand the underlying cultural and social concepts for the extensive luxury consumption in Japan. With Japan currently being the biggest market for prestige brands from the West, this study suggests a reinterpretation of existing "Western" consumer theories taking into account aspects of Confucian tradition and looks at how these cultural orientations shape the pr

The presented thesis was devoted to exploring how the problems stemming from the unsettled wartime past between the People's Republic of China and Japan influence the latter's effort to become a "normal country". It was a nonexperimental study based mainly on secondary sources and enriched with the findings from qualitative semistructured interviews. The thesis explored the conn

Sino-Japanese relations during late Koizumi period has been widely considered having dropped to the lowest point since the two countries started normal diplomatic relationship in 1972. As a substitute strategy, cultural diplomacy thus became more important to smooth resentments and strengthen common interests on private citizen's level. This paper's purpose was to look at the outcome of Ja

Chinese Foreign Policy has gone through different phases since Mao came to power in 1949. The events in the international arena and the domestic situation in China determined its international behaviour. Even though China has claimed a moral sympathy with the Third World, the later hasn?t been a priority in Chinese foreign policy. With the economic reforms, China suffered a transformation in its f

This Master thesis deals with prospective automotive financing in China. It is supposed to give a clear overview of the many confusing fragments existing on car finance in China in innumerable press articles and magazines. The paper thus answers who the competitors in the market are and what their aims are, how the actual market situation looks like, what the legal requirements are for automotive

Music has a role to play in every country and every culture. Sweden today is a country whith many different cultures, religions and music genres. The purpose of this investigation is to study how immigrants youths profit from music education on the basis of music teachers' perspectives. Questions at issue are: are there immigrant children/ youths who can not take part in music education? Have

Abstract: In this Master's thesis, the Bush administration's ?war on terrorism? is examined. Taking a discursive approach, the study seeks to explicate how the ?war on terror? has been linked to the concept of identity and ultimately to cast light on the problematic implications of the discourse. A fundamental aim in this regard has been to address a recent US intelligence report whose fi