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The present study explores the contemporary shaping of transnational protest networks through the analysis of online documents of contention. In particular, the investigation focuses on a 222-node sample from the World Social Forum (WSF) online umbrella network. The central question addresses the embedded participation of information and communications technologies in the interplay of local and global dynamics of contention. In doing so, the attention is also drawn on the way traditional and new dynamics exert different effects on protest network performing. The sample was drawn with a snowball technique run on the Web following out the relational ties among social forum websites. The research design comprised a triangular investigation. While hyperlink network analysis provided information on the network structure, the exploration of web-specific tools uncovered different patterns of technological employment and textual analysis shed light on specific protest frames. The results show that two distinct dimensions characterize any social forum online production. Content frames display an actual local involvement in civic action and mobilization while the global dimension emerges in more symbolic calls for action against unjust systemic processes. Moreover, while innovative practices fully exploit the potential of new technological devices, more traditional dynamics emerge in the recalling of icons from the past. Online protest performing is then crossnationally compared to discuss how technological access and political structures interplay in the heterogeneous development of contemporary protest performance.

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This thesis aims to explore the process of Hamas’ political transformation and engagement between 2003 and 2013 as well as the implications of the transition. In general, conventional scholarship research on Hamas and its transition in politics focuses either on the discussion of its tendency to violence or on its orientation towards moderation. However, both analyses fail to capture the essence of Hamas’ political transition over the ten years under discussion. This thesis argues that Hamas’ transition is interrelated with its perception of resistance. That is to say, Hamas’ transition aimed to keep its resistance work intact. Hamas believed that because of its Zionist ideology, Israel would continue to occupy and colonize at Palestinians’ expense. Furthermore, past negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel had not helped Palestinians but on the contrary, had intensified the Israeli occupation. Therefore, nothing but resistance would restore Palestinians’ rights and defend them against Israel’s aggression. Ever since its inception in 1987, resistance has been Hamas’ only strategy and its means to end the Israeli occupation. It is worth noting that Hamas sophisticated the concept of resistance into a ‘resistance project’ from 2003 onwards, and then enforced it after taking over Gaza in June 2007; and for Hamas, the elements of resistance are comprehensive. In order to end Israeli occupation, armed struggle is its major tactic but this includes: the necessity of the national unity of Palestinians, the need for substantial support from the Arab and Muslim states and the understanding of the West. This thesis argues that as long as the Israeli occupation is in place, it is inevitable that Hamas’ engagement in politics will be irreversible and its work on resistance will continue, irrespective of the circumstances. However, it might appear in a different form.

In this dissertation, I identify the normative grounds of exile involvement in homeland politics to determine whether and when exile activism is morally permissible, required, and legitimate. I draw on case studies throughout the thesis, and especially from the fo Iowing three exile communities: Iranians, Sri Lankan Tamils, and Tibetans. In Part I, I argue that exiles may be entitled to participate in and influence homeland politics. I consider two grounds: first, that exiles are stakeholders whose interests are affected by political developments in the homeland, and who are therefore entitled to some say in those developments; and second, that exiles are the representatives of silenced or otherwise marginalized groups in the homeland. I identify the conditions under which exiles can legitimately claim each of these grounds and the challenges they face in satisfying these conditions. In Part Il, I turn to the question of whether exiles are subject to special responsibilities to remain involved in homeland politics. I identify four bases for exile responsibilities: capability to assist; shared identity; shared oppression; and complicity in collective wrongdoing. I conclude that exiles' special capabilities to provide assistance impose a minimum duty of publicity. Exiles' activism that goes beyond this duty may be accounted for by their reasons from identity, oppression, or complicity.

In Turkey, national and local environmental organizations and organizations of organic farmers and consumers came together in order to create the "No to GMOs Platform" in March 2004 and signed a declaration entitled "Life cannot be patented" which publicly states that GMOs are a threat to ecological life on earth. Besides organizing a wide range of actions "No to GMOs Platform" - which had reached 90 organizations in a short span of time from all over the country-, welcomed the Monster Tomato Tour in October 2004. The one-month tour vi sited 15 cities in West, South, East, North and Central Turkey to raise awareness about the risks of genetically modified (GM) food and crops. The research aims to identify how and why core fram ing tasks; diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing relate to local, national and global within the anti-GM mobi lization in Turkey around the Monster Tomato Tour organized in cooperation with the Friends of the Earth's Bite-Back campaign. The findings are interpreted with a multilayered framing perspective through which anti-GM activists define the issue problematic, redress solutions and point out rationales for citizens to join the mobilization.

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International peace and state-building interventions in conflict-affected states have been on the rise for decades. This research identifies and examines the mechanisms used by the international community in Timor-Leste and assesses the implications of their use for a nationally negotiated political settlement. This research considers the following mechanisms: the establishment of a UN transitional authority, use of aid conditionality and provision of technical assistance, and suggests that the interplay between highly complex intra-East Timorese relationships and expectations with very prescriptive and pervasive international interventions contributed to a deformed and dysfunctional political settlement. Three interrelated sub-themes are explored in support of this hypothesis: international development partners interrupted and appropriated the political settlement negotiation process; international development partners failed to analyse Timor-Leste's context-specific political economy and conflict dynamics; and 'technocratic' policy advice was used to erode the state's ability to act as an agent of development. The mechanisms used by the international community produced outcomes that distanced the population from the state and rapidly altered the structure of the economy without a transition strategy. The international community must therefore assume some responsibility for the resultant political crisis and violence in 2006. Within the context of increasing international focus on conflict-affected states, evidence from Timor-Leste provides a unique lens that demonstrated how donors can negatively impact the trajectory of political settlements by using inappropriate mechanisms. This research comprises an innovative effort to bring together wide-ranging East Timorese perspectives and diverse literatures to construct a nuanced explanation of how international actions influence key dynamics of power. Drawing on the author's extensive experience living and working in Timor-Leste, it bridges existing gaps between disciplines and seeks to provide an explanatory construct that can be of use to policy-makers and practitioners in other conflict-affected states.

Recent decades have witnessed the emergence of powerful social movements and community initiatives across Latin America. These collective projects have developed a strong anti-systemic critique, refusing state-centred and top-down approaches to social change and seeking to prefigure in the present the social world in which they want to live in. At a micro scale, the political organizing around grassroots groups or colectivos has become a popular strategy for Latin American activists living in the city. Inspired by this phenomenon, this thesis analyses the politics of autonomy enacted by colectivos in Latin America. More specifically, it examines how the politics of autonomy is understood by Chilean and Mexican colectivos; the dimensions, organizational structures and strategies shaping their praxis; the main challenges encountered in the ‘doing’ of autonomous politics; and its potential for the prefiguration of a radical approach to social change. Informed by the traditions of activist research and militant ethnography, this research has advanced a collective and politically-engaged process of knowledge production, providing a thick description of the politics of autonomy enacted by Latin American colectivos. This thesis also moves beyond Western and Eurocentric scholarship, committing to an ‘epistemology of the South’ that acknowledges the rich knowledge production developed with/alongside autonomous movements in Latin America. The findings of this thesis reveal that Latin American autonomous activists have a twofold understanding of autonomy: a negative one, based on the refusal of the main systems of domination; and an affirmative one, based on the creation of an alternative politics able to challenge those hegemonic systems. The creative side of autonomy is put into motion through five main dimensions (horizontality, affective politics, autogestión; popular education; and political networks) that are not free from challenges and hindrances. As the colectivos understand autonomous politics both as a horizon and a struggle, they acknowledge the issues encountered in their praxis and make constant efforts to improve their collective performance. Finally, it is concluded that the politics of autonomy is not only a political statement nor a romantic utopia. It is a radical, organic and feasible approach to social change being enacted in the here and now by colectivos and larger social movements across Latin America.

‘Non-violent Islamist extremism’ has become an important political issue in Britain in recent years. Since 2011, with the government’s counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, non-violent Islamist groups have been considered as a security risk for spreading a divisive ideology that can lead to violence. Concerns with these groups intensified in 2014 for their alleged role in providing the ‘mood music’ for the radicalisation of British Muslims joining the Islamic State’s insurgency. Yet, terrorism isn’t the only concern regarding non-violent Islamists in Britain. In the last few years, the government has expressed concerns about their impact on social cohesion and civil liberties, including women’s rights. It has also voiced concerns regarding non-violent Islamist extremism and entryism within key British institutions. In 2015, it created the Extremism Analysis Unit—the first official body dedicated to study violent and non-violent extremism—and published its first ‘Counter-Extremism Strategy’. The key protagonists of non-violent Islamist extremism allegedly include groups and individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Jama’at-i-Islami. Some analysts describe them as part of the ‘global Muslim Brotherhood’, but do they constitute a singular phenomenon, a social movement? Adopting a conceptual approach informed by New Social Movement theory and the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, this thesis answers this question affirmatively, detailing how such groups and individuals are networked organisationally, bonded through ideological and cultural kinship, and united in a conflict of values with the British society and state. Using original interviews with prominent movement leaders, as well as primary sources, this thesis shows how it is not so much ‘Islamist’, in aspiring for an Islamic state, but concerned with institutionalising an Islamic worldview and moral framework throughout society. Its conflict with the government does not simply concern the control of state institutions, but the symbolic authority to legitimise a way of seeing, thinking and living.