Civil society activism in traditional non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is seen as one of the cornerstones of a vibrant participatory liberal democracy in most Western democratic states. Whereas this issue has been explored from a variety of perspectives in a Western context, only limited research has been carried out in a post-Soviet context. This study presents unique survey data on civil society core activism in post-Soviet Latvia addressing the following two main questions: What are the characteristics and factors that influence a person to become a core activist in a civil society organization? How does the post-Soviet Latvian context influence civil society core activism? Two nationwide surveys were carried out among core activists in all sorts of NGOs and for a comparative purpose among the population at large, from which non-activists have been extracted. Through cross-tabulations based on the three comparative dimensions: a) activists in general vs. non-activists, b) fields of interest and c) position in organization, this study indicates that many of the factors proven to be important when explaining civil society core activism in Western contexts also have explanatory power in post-Soviet Latvia. Important factors are an individual’s educational level, empathic ability and level of civic literacy, as well as the presence of activist role models and positive support for the decision to become involved in civil society activism. Citizenship and gender are other important factors, but unlike Western countries women dominate the civil society sector in Latvia. Two new factors are also suggested and tested, showing that the perception that one has the ability to organize activity and prior leadership experience from a communist organization are important for Latvian core activists. Binary logistic regression analysis is further used to test the significance of each of the independent variables alone and in combination with each other, introducing different types of core activists based on gender, motives for activism, intensity of political, charity and recreational activity, as well as the positions they have in their organizations.

Målet med språkaktivism är att förändra samhället genom att förändra språket. Språkaktivism bedrivs ”underifrån” i syfte att utmana och på lång sikt upphäva diskriminerande samhällsstrukturer. I den här avhandlingen undersöks diskussioner om feministisk språkaktivism som förts i Sverige från 1960-talet till 2015. Under denna period har kvinnorörelsen, homo- och bisexuella, trans*aktivister och queera personer skapat en mängd nya ord för att ifrågasätta och förändra rådande normer kring kön och sexualitet; ombudskvinna, hen, hoan, h@n, kvinniskor, intergender, cisperson och pansexuell är bara några av dem. Aktivistiska språkförändringar ger upphov till re_aktioner av olika slag. Dessa är inte sällan uttryck för ett försvar av rådande sociala och samhälleliga könsnormer. När det till exempel gäller det omdiskuterade pronomenet hen så är det inte kombinationen av bokstäverna h, e och n i sig som upprör, utan det är de normkritiska intentionerna bakom bruket av ordet som skapar debatt. Att vissa grupper aktivt förändrar språket och att andra re_agerar så starkt på dessa förändringar visar att språket tillskrivs betydelse för upprätthållandet av samhälleliga normer och maktstrukturer. I avhandlingen analyseras, utifrån en diskursanalytisk ansats, diskussioner om feministisk språkförändring som har förts i tre kontexter: inom aktivistiska grupper, i kommentarsfält på nätet och inom den institutionaliserade språkvården. Avhandlingens centrala forskningsintresse är inriktat på relationen mellan språk och kön och relationen mellan språkförändringar och förändringar i den utomspråkliga, sociala världen och hur dessa relationer förstås i de tre kontexterna. / The aim of this thesis is to analyze discussions on feminist language change focusing on the period 1960–2015. The data comprises discussions from three different contexts: feminist communities, public forums for discussion on the internet and official language organizations. The analyzed data from the feminist communities consists of a range of different sources of text, for example newspapers, magazines, novels from the women’s movement, lesbian poetry, queer and trans*activist blogs, biographies, comics and plays, to name but a few. In addition to this two focus group discussions were conducted with five teenaged and five adult activists, each with a queer and/or trans*activist background. The data for the analyses of the discussions in public internet forums consists of 1 865 negative reactions to feminists’ language interventions. For the analyses of the reactions from the official language organizations, data was culled from 16 handbooks with language recommendations from the Language Council of Sweden and the Swedish Academy. My central research interest is how the actors in these three contexts understand and describe the relation between language and gender, and between strategic language change and changes in the social, non-linguistic world. Furthermore I investigate in which forms of gender-related discrimination the language changes are supposed to intervene. I adopt a critical discourse analytic and interdisciplinary approach that combines linguistic theories and methods with those from Gender Studies. The results show that Swedish language activists from the 1960s to the 1990s focused on linguistic interventions aimed at challenging patriarchal norms. In the 1980s homosexual activists, especially lesbian activists, began to intervene in heteronormative concepts. Until around the middle of the 1990s feminists acted from a binary concept of gender. From then on, queer and trans*activists have tried to challenge the idea of two, stable and natural gender categories. Language activists have seen language as performative and a tool for constructing reality. Even those who react negatively in forums on the internet to feminist language change assume that language has performative effects on the conceptualization of gender. The official language organizations, on the other hand, describe language in their recommendations mostly as something unpolitical that reflects rather than constructs society.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / A presente Tese, intitulada âMovimentos de protestos virtuais da Anonymous no Brasil: unidos como um e divididos por fakesâ, apresenta um estudo analÃtico da Rede de Protestos Anonymous, desde seus primÃrdios, no site 4chan, atà os protestos contra a Copa do Mundo no Brasil - 2014, tendo como Ãpice as ManifestaÃÃes de Junho de 2013, nas quais a Anonymous teve influente participaÃÃo, tanto por meio de prÃticas de ativismo online quanto em aÃÃes diretas, offline. O ideÃrio Anonymous à caracterizado por uma forma de luta polÃtica que objetiva alcanÃar a emancipaÃÃo humana por meio da hiperdemocracia, tecnocracia, total liberdade de expressÃo, informaÃÃo e comunicaÃÃo. O processo de conquista deste ideÃrio se daria pela prÃtica de novos modelos de mobilizaÃÃes sociais, ou seja, por um processo educativo autÃnomo, autovigilante, anÃnimo, que se desenvolveria num movimento horizontal, sem lideranÃas, sem interferÃncias de partidos polÃticos e sem ideologias. Este modelo se diferencia da forma de luta polÃtica do sÃculo XX, caracterizada pela tradicional dicotomia entre esquerda e direita, movimentos com lideranÃas verticalizadas, personalistas e guiadas por tendÃncias ideolÃgicas explÃcitas. No intuito de compreender o desenvolvimento das aÃÃes de protestos Anonymous no Brasil, utilizou-se como base empÃrica de pesquisa diversas fontes virtuais, tais como pÃginas do Facebook e canais do Youtube das cÃlulas de Anonymous no Brasil e exterior, alÃm de observaÃÃo dos protestos de rua, âOperaÃÃo 7 de setembroâ e a âOperaÃÃo NÃo vai ter Copaâ, e entrevistas com ativistas Anonymous. O processo de anÃlise das fontes foi ponderado pelo estudo dos conteÃdos e das diversas formas de linguagens utilizadas nas aÃÃes ciberativistas. Verificou-se que o desenvolvimento da luta polÃtica com base no ideÃrio Anonymous, na medida em que se propÃs a romper com o modelo tradicional de movimento polÃtico, apesar de agregar significativo nÃmero de ativistas, o ideÃrio Anonymous nÃo foi compreendido pela maioria de seus seguidores e ativistas. A prÃpria forma de criaÃÃo das cÃlulas Anonymous no Brasil teve um inÃcio desvirtuado, tendo sido conduzido de modo verticalizado, em cujo anonimato permitiu que os ativistas seguissem planos estabelecidos por pequenos grupos ou organizaÃÃes desconhecidas, bem como a apropriaÃÃo das cÃlulas Anonymous por fakes, que conduziram determinadas mobilizaÃÃes orientadas por interesses polÃticos, partidÃrios e ideolÃgicos. Tal fato resultou em divisÃes, rupturas e denÃncias por partes de algumas cÃlulas. Por exemplo, a Anonymous FUEL, que continuou ativa, mas com uma postura vigilante em relaÃÃo ao ideÃrio Anonymous, bem como as cÃlulas Anonymous Paranà e Anonymous Curitiba, que se declararam inativas, dadas a deturpaÃÃo de ativistas Anonymous que passaram a assumir causas militaristas e golpistas. Para fins deste estudo, a metodologia utilizada teve como referÃncia a anÃlise de discurso de Bakhtin (2002) e Ducrot (1987). Para temas que permeiam o estudo, como o ciberespaÃo, hackerativismo, pÃs-modernidade e movimentos sociais, utilizou-se como base teÃrica as contribuiÃÃes de Castells (2003), LÃvy (1999), Melucci (1989), Tilly (1978), Vegh (2003), Harvey (2008), Santos (2000), (2002), Giddens (1991) e Beck (2000). / This thesis, entitled "Movement of virtual protests by the Anonymous in Brazil: united as one and divided by fakes," presents an analytical evaluation of the Anonymous Protests Network, since its inception, in the site 4chan, to show dissent against the World Cup Brazil - 2014, having reached its peak in the June 2013 Demonstrations, in which Anonymous had influential participation, either through online activism practices as in direct actions offline. The ideology supporting Anonymous is characterized by a form of political struggle which aims at achieving human emancipation through hiper-democracy, technocracy and complete freedom of expression, information and communication. The process of a successful establishment of these ideas would take place through the practice of new models of social mobilization, that is, by an autonomous educational process - self-vigilant, anonymous - which would develop a horizontal movement without leaders, without interference from political parties and without ideologies. This model differs from the political form of struggle of the twentieth century, characterized by the traditional split between left and right movements with leaders in a personality vertical hierarchal power line, guided by explicit ideological tendencies. In order to understand the development of the Anonymous protest actions in Brazil, it was used as a empirical research base several virtual sources such as Facebook pages and YouTube channels of Anonymous cells in Brazil and abroad, as well as observation of street protests, such as "Operation September 7" and "Operation No World Cup", besides interviews with Anonymous activists. The process of analysis of the sources was weighted by the study of the contents and the various forms of languages used in the actions of cyberactivists. It was found that the development of political struggles based on ideas spawned by Anonymous, as far as it proposes to break the traditional model of political action, in spite of counting with significant number of activists, the Anonymous ideology was not understood by most of his followers and activists. The very form of creating Anonymous cells in Brazil had a distorted start and was conducted in vertical fashion, anonymity allowing activists to follow plans established by small groups or unknown organizations, as well as appropriation of Anonymous cells by fakes, which led to certain mobilizations guided by political interests of a partisan and ideological nature. This fact resulted in divisions, ruptures and complaints by parts of some cells. As an example of this situation one can cite Anonymous FUEL, which remained active, but with a vigilant stance on Anonymous ideology, and two other branches, Anonymous Paranà and Anonymous Curitiba, which declared themselves inactive, given misrepresentation of Anonymous ideas by other cells that assumed militarist causes and defended a coup dâÃtat in Brazil. For this study, the methodology used had as reference discourse analysis of Bakhetin (2002) and Ducrot (1987). For themes that permeate the study, such as cyberspace, hacktivism, postmodernism and social movements, it was used as a theoretical basis the contributions of Castells (1999), Levy (1999), Melucci (1989), Tilly (1978), Vegh (2003), Harvey (2008), Santos (2000), (2002), Giddens (1991) and Beck (2000).

Black Lives Matter rörelsen engagerade människor både internationellt och nationellt under våren 2020. Företag var inte sena med att ta ställning och visa deras stöd i frågan, vilket ledde till olika typer av reaktioner bland deras konsumenter. Denna studie ämnar undersöka svenska konsumenters attityd gentemot företag som använder sig av brand activism som svar på sociala rörelser, där Black Lives Matter valts som empiriskt kontext. Studien ämnar också besvara vilka de viktigaste aspekterna bakom konsumenters attityd är. En förstudie har gjorts genom netnografi och empiri har samlats in genom en webbenkät med 260 svenska respondenter. Studiens analys och resultat tyder på att respondenternas generella inställning till brand activism är positiv i de fall då respondenterna anser att den sociala rörelsen som stöttas är viktig. Det finns dock tre dimensioner som påverkar den övergripande attityden. Dessa är autentiskt innehåll, attityd gentemot företaget och värdet i handlingar. Inom dessa dimensioner utrönas flertalet teman där företagets historia och storlek, innehållet i själva budskapet samt att det genomsyrar organisationen är de viktigaste. Vidare är även temana utbildande, genuin och handlingskraftig kommunikation inom brand activism viktiga delar att ta med sig från resultatet. / The Black Lives Matter movement engaged people both internationally and nationally in the spring of 2020. Companies were not late to join in and show their support in favour of the movement, which led to various reactions among their consumers. This study aims to examine the attitude of Swedish consumers towards companies that use brand activism as a response to social movements, where the Black Lives Matter movement serves as an empirical context. The study also intends to answer what the key aspects behind the studied consumer attitudes are. A prestudy has been done through netnography and empirical data has been collected for the main study through a web survey with 260 Swedish respondents. The study’s analysis and results indicate that the respondents’ general attitude towards the use of brand activism is positive in cases where the respondents believe that the social movement being endorsed is of importance. However, there are three dimensions that affect the overall attitude. These are authentic content, attitude towards the company and the value of actions. Within these dimensions several themes are identified, where the company’s history and size, the content of the message itself and that it permeates the organization are the most important. Furthermore, the themes of educational, genuine and actionable communication within brand activism are also important takeaways from the result.

Dans l’histoire religieuse des États-Unis, la féminisation des dénominations protestantes a constitué un processus long et progressif. Cette féminisation a été caractérisée par la participation croissante des femmes dans les institutions religieuses, en tant que fidèles mais aussi en tant que leaders religieux. Bien que l’islam soit considéré comme une religion minoritaire récemment transplantée aux États-Unis, des indices tendent à montrer qu’à l’instar d’autres religions transplantées dans ce pays, comme le judaïsme réformé et le bouddhisme, les institutions islamo-américaines connaissent un processus de féminisation. L’émergence d’une théologie féministe islamique depuis les années 1970, communément appelée « féminisme islamique », et le développement d’un militantisme de terrain, plus particulièrement depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, ont contribué à la féminisation de l’islam. Les militantes musulmanes américaines revendiquent une visibilité dans l’espace public et dans le champ religieux islamo-américain. Quels sont leurs revendications, leurs défis et leurs stratégies ? Quels sont les facteurs internes et externes qui ont conduit à la visibilité croissante des femmes et la focalisation autour de la problématique féminine au sein de l’islam américain ? Comment, de façon concrète, la participation croissante des femmes transforme-t-elle les institutions islamo-américaines, les croyances et les pratiques ? Voici certaines des questions que nous soulevons dans notre thèse. Les résultats sont notamment basés sur une étude qualitative exploratoire (entretiens semi-directif et observations participantes). Nous mobilisons également les données d’une étude quantitative sur l’inclusion des femmes au sein de l’espace cultuel publiée en 2013, afin de mettre l’accent sur les transformations du champ religieux islamo-américain. / In American religious history, the feminization of Protestant denominations has been a long and gradual process. This feminization has been characterized by the increasing participation of women within religious institutions, not only as worshippers but also as religious leaders. Although Islam is considered to be a newly transplanted minority religion in the United-States, there are indicators revealing that, like many other transplanted religions in the United States, such as Reform Judaïsm and Buddhism, Muslim religious institutions are undergoing a process of feminization. These indicators have included the development of an Islamic feminist theology since the 1970s onwards, commonly called "Islamic feminism", and the emergence of a religious grass-root activism, more significantly since the 9/11 attacks. American Muslim women activists claim visibility in the public sphere and within the US Islamic religious landscape. What are their demands, challenges and strategies ? What are the internal and external factors that have led up to the growing visibility of women and women's issues in American Islam ? How specifically has the increased role of women affected American-Islamic institutions, beliefs or practices ? Those are some of the questions we raise in our thesisThe results are based on a fieldwork (semi-directive interviews and participant observation). We also use the data of a report on the inclusion of women within the American mosque published in 2013. The transformations linked to the increasing women’s participation in the mosque are emphasized.

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This thesis investigates the potential of transmedia storytelling to engage the public in climate action through a detailed examination of the transmedia project “The YEARS Project”. Employing the transmedia design analytical and operational model by Gambarato et al. (2020) and the engagement model by Elizabeth Evans (2019), this study combines both frameworks to develop a new model focused on transmedia activism. The research identifies how the integration of diverse narrative techniques in the project and multimedia platforms can enhance awareness and mobilize action among audiences, whilst also highlighting significant challenges that limit its effectiveness and global reach. Accessibility challenges, such as subscription requirements and language barriers, coupled with a US-centric approach, limit the project's global applicability and restrict content primarily to English-speaking audiences targeting mainly the Global North. Further, the project lacks dedicated community-building platforms beyond social media and clear calls to action within the frame of the project's core, the documentary series. By proposing a model for transmedia activism, this thesis provides valuable insights and strategic guidelines for practitioners aiming to design factual transmedia storytelling projects that drive civic action and thereby enhance the under-researched field of transmedia activism.

In pursuing their goals, newly-created constitutional courts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics are affected by their institutional setting and capabilities. Yet, previous studies did not explore how constitutional courts develop over time and what noteworthy implications for politics and society result from their institutional growth. To address this gap in the literature, I measured a variety of organizational characteristics and constructed an index of institutional development for the twenty eight constitutional courts in the post-communist countries from the initial year of their transitions through 2005. I argued that high values on this measure (which I labeled the judicial viability score) should enable constitutional court judges to satisfy their policy objectives and improve public and elite perceptions of the judiciary’s role in new democratic systems. To demonstrate this empirically, I tested a series of statistical models of judicial influence to show that the level of court’s institutional viability has profound implications on its legal, political, and social impact. My analyses indicated that the level of the constitutional court’s institutional viability is, indeed, an important determinant of the constitutional court judges’ ability to actively shape public policies and render decisions which are independent of, and in opposition to, the preferences of dominant political actors and government institutions. Additionally, the results demonstrated that the level of constitutional court’s viability significantly affects the perceptions of the ordinary citizens and business elites—ordinary citizens and business owners and managers are more likely to express confidence in the national legal system in countries with relatively institutionalized constitutional courts than citizens living in countries with weakly institutionalized constitutional courts. Thus, my research highlights the importance of studying the evolutionary process by which courts acquire institutional viability and, in doing so, contributes to our understanding of the factors shaping the development of democracy, the rule of law, and constitutionalism in the post-communist societies.

In the face of dire threats posed by anthropogenic climate change, a growing international Movement for Fossil Fuel Divestment has emerged to challenge the political and economic power of the fossil fuel industry. Building off a history of college and university divestment campaigns, students are spearheading the movement to rid their institutions’ endowments of investments in the top 200 companies with the largest reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas. Highlighting perspectives from within the movement and drawing from literature in social movement theory and Climate Justice, I explore three crucial components of the student Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement: Climate Justice, perceptions of risk, and potential political impacts. I argue that Fossil Fuel Divestment is a powerful component of the broader Climate Movement because it is mobilizing and radicalizing a new generation of activists to fight the climate crisis, challenging the dominant paradigm of individualized climate action, and is significantly influencing the public discourse on climate change. In seeking to further illuminate the power of this movement, I explore the possibilities and limitations of divestment as a tactic for Climate Justice and offer recommendations for moving forward.