The weight of neoconservative ideology in world politics is generally identified and acknowledged. In spite of this more profound studies are found wanting. I attempt to make the ideology more understandable and approach it from a distinct point of view, examining neoconservatism's attitude to torture in the United States' 'Global War on Terror'. In so doing, my aim is also to clarify the thus far somewhat vague distinction between the current U.S. administration and neoconservatism in political and academic writing. I have utilized the theory of cognitive dissonance created by Leon Festinger to study the mechanisms in play concerning the different attitudes toward the use of torture. The theory has so far found very few applications in the study of international relations, but I believe there to be significant potential in its future use. On a more concrete level, I undertake to examine whether the core values of neoconservatism (human rights, liberal democracy, 'American values' and 'moral use of power') on the one hand, and condoning attitudes toward the use of torture on the other, give rise to an intolerable inner conflict that could be called cognitive dissonance. The use of torture is absolutely prohibited in international law, standards and norms. The most central internationally binding legal obligation prohibiting the use of torture is the Convention against Torture from 1984. The convention prohibits the use of torture in all cases and without exception. My study examines the question of torture in the context of the 'War on Terror' and the relation of torture to the individual. The individual rises in fact to be one of the most salient levels of analysis in the paper: each of neoconservatism's core values can be said to be based on defending the rights of the individual while torture can simultaneously be defined as being the ultimate denial of the individual worth and dignity. I conclude my study by asserting that neoconservatism's attitude toward torture has led to severe conflicts with its own core values. Although accurate definitions of the mechanisms used in alleviating the dissonance are impossible to find, the study gives evidence indicating that denial of responsibility and a rearranging of the hierarchy of internal values can have been included in the reduction of dissonance. I consider the notion that attempts to reduce dissonance typically 'spill over' to other seemingly unattached areas of decision-making very important. This means that in addition to core values or the fundamental level of ideology, past decisions also influence future decisions.

The aim of the study was to search for relationships between entrepreneurship, management and success in farm businesses. Entrepreneurship (’yrittävyys’ in Finnish) is considered as a qualitative characteristic of a person. It is defined as the combination of certain values and attitudes, which are concept of human being; attitudes towards property, labour and uncertainty as well as innovativeness. Management is considered as a labour process on three levels: the institutional level, the economical level and the operative level. Entrepreneurship was measured with a one-dimensional construction called ideology of entrepreneurship. The effectiveness of management on different levels was measured with sum variables. The empirical data of the study was collected from bookkeeping farms in the region of Southern Finland. The main conclusions of the study are as follows. Well-educated farmers and farmers of large farms were more entrepreneurial and more effective as managers than those with lower education and smaller farms. The more entrepreneurial the orientation of the farmer, the higher the effectiveness of management on all the three levels. Innovative farmers and farmers who are willing to take risks were more effective as managers than the less innovative and the risk minimizers. The score on the measure of ideology of entrepreneurship and the coefficient of profitability were positively correlated. The correlation was higher on small farms than on large farms. Three out of five components of ideology of entrepreneurship correlated with the coefficient of profitability on a significant level. The components were attitudes toward property, labour and uncertainty. The scores on the measures of effectiveness on all the managerial levels had a stronger relationship with the technical success (average yield) than with the economical success (coefficient of profitability). Regression analysis demonstrated that besides arable area entrepreneurship is a significant predictor of economical success. Other variables in the model were forest area, insitutional effectiveness and the production line. The model explained 39 percent of the variance in the coefficient of profitability.