This thesis uses discourse theory on speeches made by four Tea Party elites: Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and Rand Paul, to see how they construct an American identity. My purpose is to show how the Tea party movement articulates the American identity by exploring the way in which they use chains of equivalences to produce meaning to their identity. My methodological tools rely on the framework developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, and further refined though the work of Norman Fairclough and David Howarth, where meaning is produced by articulating elements into nodal points that taken together constitutes a discursive hegemony based on inclusion and exclusion in social antagonisms, where the movement articulates who they are in relation to what they are not. My results indicate that the Tea Party movement does not find a way to stabilize a cohesive identity, instead their conception of the American identity exists within both a libertarian notion of freedom and liberty as the absence of external force, while at the same time articulating conservative social values such as God, family, and marriage; they also tow the line of dogmatic individualism and populist collectivist notions of a people and a nation. This shows how the Tea Party movement is an eclectic movement that bears similarity to historical conservative movements in America that has often articulated philosophical impulses that are conflicting and sometimes even incompatible with each other.

Cette thèse se propose d’examiner la place de Maxence Van der Meersch dans la littérature populaire, notamment en confrontant les choix esthétiques et les oeuvres romanesques de l’écrivain aux courants populiste et prolétarien, mais aussi en étudiant les rapports personnels que le romancier entretint avec le peuple. L’examen de ses idéologies sociales et politiques permet de mieux cerner un homme qui, fidèle à ses convictions, refusa d’intégrer un groupe qui ne le représentât pas intégralement et demeura ainsi inclassable tant sur le plan littéraire que politique. Les thèmes de prédilection du romancier sont passés en revue, femmes pécheresses, rachat par la souffrance, figures christiques, personnages d’hercules, etc. ; et l’analyse de ces différents poncifs et clichés, populaires ou non, conduit à une remise en questions des reproches de manichéisme et de simplification extrême souvent faits à l’écrivain. Si son engagement et sa volonté de convaincre l’amenèrent parfois à des prises de position très tranchées, la principale cause qu’il voulut défendre fut celle du peuple, pour lequel son attachement ne se démentit jamais. L’étude s’appuie sur les romans publiés et inédits de l’auteur, ainsi que sur les nombreux et précieux documents présents au Fonds Maxence Van der Meersch de Wasquehal et dans les archives Albin Michel à l’IMEC. Elle est complétée par des annexes qui exhument des textes jusque là restés inédits. / This thesis proposes to examine Maxence Van der Meersch’s place in popular literature, especially by confronting the writer’s aesthetic choices and novels with populist and proletarian movements, and also by studying the personal relationship the novelist had with the popular classes. The examination of his social and political ideologies allows to grasp better a man who, true to his convictions, refused to integrate a group that would not have represented him entirely and therefore remained unclassifiable both in the political and literary fields. The novelist’s favourite themes are reviewed : sinful women, atonement by suffering, Christly figures, Herculean characters, etc. ; and the analysis of those different stereotypes and commonplaces, whether popular or not, leads to a questioning of the criticisms about Manicheism and extreme simplification that are often made to the writer. If his commitment and his will to convince sometimes induced him to very clear-cut standpoints, the main cause he wanted to defend was that of the workers, for whom his attachment was never denied. The study is based on published and unpublished novels of the author, and on the numerous and precious documents from the Maxence Van der Meersch Resource of Wasquehal and from Albin Michel archives at IMEC. It is completed with appendixes that bring to light so far unpublished texts.

On the 3rd of December 1989, Venezuelans went to the polls for the first time to directly elect their local and regional political leaders. A process of government decentralization was initiated with direct elections of municipal mayors and regional state governors. Since 1958, the political system had been dominated by two political parties, the social democratic AD (Acción Democrática) and Christian democratic COPEI, both strongly centralized parties. The system of strongly dominant political parties is often referred to as partyarchy, with penetration of organized social and political activities. Notwithstanding, the AD-COPEI partyarchy experienced a relatively rapid process of undermining from 1989, losing control over important mayordomes, governorships and municipal councils. The municipal, regional and national elections of 1998 and 2000 changed the political panorama even more. Several entirely new political parties have emerged. The MVR (Movimiento V República) party of current President Hugo Chávez presents the most dramatic and rapid rise in this context. But similarly, other parties associated with decentralization have achieved increased political influence.Theoretically, a combination of actors rational choice, and, more process-structural approaches, helps to theoretically understand the political transformations related to decentralization and its implications for the party system. The study demonstrates that the party system and political decentralization are Intimately connected and dependent of each other. This study describes and analyzes the "encounter" between the Venezuelan party system and the decentralization reform. / <p>Forskningsämne: Latin American studies/Latinamerikastudier</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the use of conceptual metaphors in political speeches by Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. Conceptual metaphor theory is applied as the framework for the study. Metaphorical linguistic expressions are identified with help of the method Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP). The conceptual metaphors giving rise to the metaphorical linguistic expressions are identified and categorized into different domains in the study. The analysis demonstrates that the use of metaphors is ubiquitous. The metaphors related to the salient domains of politics, nation, immigration, economy, and morality are discussed and further investigated in the analysis. The analysis shows that metaphors are employed in the construction of populist discourse and to evoke the emotion of fear by mainly drawing from embodied elements. A notable parallel between Trump and Farage is the use of the Moral Order metaphor which subsequently reveal their moral values.

The aim of the study is to make visible through a qualitative method if and how the program works to educate social workers through for example anti-colonial education. The relevance of the study is shown in the importance of knowledge about social and human rights, ethical perspective and diversity perspective in social work. The intuition for social work at Linnaeus University has the task of helping sociology students to meet the goals in the study plan but: Do students really achieve the education-specific goals? What does the department do to get the students there? What impact does right-wing populism have on the education?

The purpose of the study is based on an idea regarding how the success of populism in Sweden and the growth of private vocational upper secondary schools took place in parallel. How this relationship can be seen and how it affects the teaching became interesting questions that I wanted to answer. The study was conducted through a qualitative interview with three teachers, all with a personal relationship to the two school types. That there is a problem with the success of populism in relation to the school's democratic mission was also something that came to be pointed out during the study, mostly in vocational education in general, but extra clear was the problem in the male-dominated pre-school free school that was part of the study. the conclusion was a bit ambiguous because on the one hand there are signs of a serious problem that should be taken seriously, but at the same time the study is very small and locally limited. Further studies should primarily be done nationally to see if the problems are similar in a larger perspective. Although further studies are needed to reach a conclusion to demonstrate how this is or is not a local phenomenon but a possible national problem. / Syftet med studien bygger på en tanke gällande hur populismens framgång i Sverige och tillväxten av privata yrkesförberedande gymnasium skett parallellt. Hur detta förhållande kan ses och hur det påverkar undervisningen blev intressanta frågor som jag ville svara på. Studien genomfördes genom en kvalitativ intervju med tre lärare, alla med personlig relation till de två skoltyperna. Att det finns ett problem med populismens framgång i förhållande till skolans demokratiska uppdrag var också något som kom att bli påtalas under studien, mestadels inom yrkesutbildningarna i allmänhet, men extra tydligt var problemet i den manligt dominerade yrkesförberedande friskolan som var en del av studien. slutsatsen blev lite tvetydig eftersom det å ena sidan finns tecken på en alvarlig problematik som bör tas på allvar, men samtidigt är studien väldigt liten och lokalt avgränsad. Ytterligare studier bör främst göras nationellt för att se om problematiken är liknande i ett större perspektiv. Även om ytterligare studier är nödvändiga för att nå en slutsats för att påvisa hur detta är eller inte är ett lokalt fenomen utan ett eventuellt nationellt problem.

Účelem diplomové práce je analyzovat a zkoumat změny na slovenské politické scéně v období od parlamentních voleb 2010 až po parlamentní volby 2016. Práce čerpá jednak ze Sartoriho teorie stranických systémů, tak z materiálů Institutu pro veřejné otázky, které rozebírají ve svých publikacích předmětné období. Na základě zkoumaných pohybů, diplomová práce věnuje svou pozornost jednotlivým vládám, jakož i charakteristice a voličské podpoře relevantním stranám. Během sledovaného období došlo jednak k prohloubení fenoménu tzv. oligarchické demokracie, tak na druhé straně k výraznému přeskupování voličské podpory na středo-pravém politickém spektru od hodnotově zavedených politických stran k novým, těžko definovatelným subjektům, ale i k rostoucí podpoře antisystémové strany s fašistickou minulostí. Klíčová slova volby, politické strany, oligarchická demokracie, populismus, středo-pravé strany, antisystémové strany

The purpose of this master thesis is to analyze movements and changes on the Slovak political scene, Slovak party system as well as increase of support for antisystem and populist parties. The master thesis devotes its attention to individual governments, their characteristics and electoral support to relevant parties. The work is intended to answer the question whether the party system has changed over the period under review and in what way, and if the antisystemic parties and the phenomenon of populism have grown in the last six years. The theoretical concepts of Giovanni Sartori's party systems, the antisystemic parties from Sartori and Giovanni Capoccia and populism from Franciso Panizza, Cas Mudde, Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and Chantal Mouffe are used to examine the dynamics of the Slovak political scene in order to answer the above questions. Keywords elections, political parties, party system, moderate pluralism, polarized pluralism, antisystem parties, protest parties, populism

The purpose of this master thesis is to analyze movements and changes on the Slovak political scene, Slovak party system as well as increase of support for antisystem and populist parties. The master thesis devotes its attention to individual governments, their characteristics and electoral support to relevant parties. The work is intended to answer the question whether the party system has changed over the period under review and in what way, and if the antisystemic parties and the phenomenon of populism have grown in the last six years. The theoretical concepts of Giovanni Sartori's party systems, the antisystemic parties from Sartori and Giovanni Capoccia and populism from Franciso Panizza, Cas Mudde, Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and Chantal Mouffe are used to examine the dynamics of the Slovak political scene in order to answer the above questions. Keywords elections, political parties, party system, moderate pluralism, polarized pluralism, antisystem parties, protest parties, populism

Barack Obama's administration inherited one of the most severe economic crises in the history of the United States, which severely undermined the American public's confidence in the country's political and economic future. Declining trust in the federal government and its handling of the economic recession gave rise to two influential movements, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, which were thoroughly critical of the country's leadership. Both movements made use of a strong populist rhetoric and mobilized masses by denouncing the political and financial elites, calling for returning control over the country's fate into the hands of ordinary citizens. My master's thesis is an analysis of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street that focuses on the ideology and goals that drove these popular movements, as well as highlights the most crucial commonalities and differences between them. I argue in favor of interpreting the ideologies behind the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street as two distinct types of populism, in addition to which I emphasize the different degree of outside support the two movements enjoyed during their rise to prominence. To determine how influential the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street became during Barack Obama's presidency, I also study their relationship with the political...