This thesis is concerned with how political activists in Lebanon maintain political engagement when at every moment it appears easier for them to give up. Within such an ethnographic context of ‘failure’, it grapples with how a political subjectivity predicated upon the desire for radically transformative action is produced and maintained. It contends that political subjectivity comes about through political engagement, not prior to it, and contours the experiential basis of political activism in its wake. To account for how activist political subjectivity is maintained, this thesis looks to the key roles played by politicised emotions and diffuse solidary feeling states in making the political and social worlds activists inhabit sensible. It attends, too, to the significance of intense moments of protest in producing and maintaining an activist political subjectivity: in the experience of protest, in its continued circulation after the fact in narrative form, and in the effects it has on the temporality of future action. As such, the thesis makes use of an event-centred methodology to better account for the transformative potential of action. The distinctive theoretical contributions of this thesis are fourfold: 1) to show how the passionate and experiential dimensions of activism are fundamental rather than epiphenomenal aspects of the political, contributing to the broader interdisciplinary study of mobilisation, activism, and radical politics; 2) to argue ethnographically that affect is not and can never be pre-social – and is as such an anthropological object of analysis – thereby adding to more recent anthropological scholarship on affect; 3) to show how overlapping temporal circuits and senses of self-in-time make activists ‘affectable’ in particular ways at particular moments, contributing to the growing anthropological literatures on historicity and temporality; and 4) to demonstrate the importance of an event-centred methodology for anthropological engagements with transformative action.

This thesis addresses the campaign of militant activism which Wales witnessed between 1963 and 1969. It demonstrates that the unprecedented period of violence was fuelled by both the contentious flooding of Cwm Tryweryn and crucially, the failure of Plaid Cymru to prevent the valley's drowning through constitutional means. By not taking passive and timely protest action, Plaid Cymru ensured that militancy, as predominately undertaken by Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru, became a feature of the Welsh geo-political landscape. Moreover, had the party taken a more sharpened approach during the earlier stages of the proposal, it is likely that the emergence of the so-called Free Wales Army, which campaigned along the lines of using 'propaganda against the Establishment', may well have been avoided. However, this is a view which is challenged by, among others, former members of the displaced community, who maintain that Plaid Cymru - and most notably its president - did all they could to prevent the Tryweryn Reservoir Bill becoming law. Nonetheless, the escalation in militant strategy came in response to the impending Royal Investiture of Charles Windsor as Prince of Wales. In retaliation, the authorities established the so-called Shrewsbury Unit. This was borne of an increasingly desperate attempt to apprehend those responsible, in order to ensure the safety of the Royal Party and the success of the ceremony. By considering the publicity conscious Free Wales Army, the thesis demonstrates that the group undertook one failed militant strike. It also establishes that the militant offensive undertaken by MAC comprised two distinct phases. The first in 1963 was predominately marshalled by Emyr Llywelyn Jones. The second period of hostilities, between 1966 and 1969, was orchestrated by John Jenkins; who critically, was a Sergeant in the British Army Dental Corps. This thesis seeks to reinstate the importance of the militant campaign in Welsh history, neither by judging it nor dismissing it, but by establishing the importance of these protests to both the nation's history and its cultural and political advance. It also establishes the detail of what happened, while seeking to tell the story in a balanced way, paying full attention to the perspective of the perpetrators and those actively engaged in their detection.

If the financial crisis was an opportunity to challenge and replace free market (neoliberal) capitalism; then why has nothing radically changed? It seemed to me that we might find answers to this question by studying those movements which sought to actually bring change about in the post-crash moment and what foreclosures they faced in resisting the reassertion of neoliberalism. As such, over three summers (2012, 2013, 2014) I interviewed and observed Occupy London, learning about the movement and discussing with activists involved what challenges and problems they faced in attempting to resist the continuation of this system after the crash. Indeed, this seemed particularly important to study in a situation where that ideology which caused the crisis in the first place, appeared to be not only continuing 'by default' and presenting itself as the only 'sensible' way forwards, but also seemed to be dominating society as a set of normative cultural values. I begin by arguing that the tactic of occupation and the collective identity of 'we are the 99%' carried radical potential, insofar as they both indicated an intention to present an organised and symbolically consistent appearance, which aimed to qualitatively stretch their grievances to others. Against that which designated the movement as 'nothing to see here' and as something which should simply 'move along'; occupation also gave an opportunity to make the 'nonsense' idea (that there could be an alternative) appear against its designation as nonsense. However, it is my contention that any possibilities of resistance and change which occupation and 'we are the 99%' suggested, were unable to be capitalised upon by the Occupy movement in London. Firstly, I point to pragmatic issues of pervasive individualism and libertarianism within the movement, which created disorganisation, symbolic inconsistency and a limitation of their ability to extend beyond the movement itself. Furthermore, I also argue against ideas that Occupy was somehow able to create a structureless, open and prefigurative performance of an alternative society which was outside and untainted by wider social structures, instead demonstrating that this created a tendency to overlook inequalities that persisted within the movement. Secondly and beyond these pragmatic issues, however, I also argue that such presuppositions of individualism, libertarianism and prefiguration - as well as the pursuit of authenticity and cynical constructions of power through conspiracy theory - indicated a common framework shared by Occupy London and that which it was attempting to resist. In other words, insofar as these assumptions and givens distributed both the activist's resistance and the post-crash reassertion of neoliberalism, I argue that Occupy unintentionally and counter-intuitively extended the normativity and power of that which it was attempting to refigure and challenge, whilst paradoxically playing into the marginalisation of its own appearance. Rather than a scientific description, or a short sharp characterisation of post-crash resistance (which might either cynically dismiss such movements or romanticise them); the aim of my thesis was instead to trace the foreclosures and the unrealised potentialities of the movement over a period of time, allowing activists to be critical and reflexive through patient analysis.

De la construction de centrales jusqu’au traitement des déchets radioactifs, le nucléaire ne cesse de susciter les désaccords. La thèse se focalise sur le cas de la Lorraine, qui entre dans le nucléaire français dès 1978 avec la centrale de Cattenom (Moselle) et poursuit son développement avec le projet de centre de stockage de déchets radioactifs Cigéo (Meuse/Haute-Marne). Situé à l’échelle des territoires, le travail montre comment les populations essaient d’empêcher ces projets. Cette approche questionne l’opposition classique entre « pro » et « anti » nucléaires, pour observer ce qui pose problème à ceux qui décident d’entrer dans la contestation. Pour cela, la notion de désaccord montre la diversité des oppositions à Cattenom et Cigéo, qui ne sont pas toujours menées par des écologistes. Selon leur forme, les désaccords induisent une certaine perception des situations, orientent les conduites des acteurs, produisent du sens pour ceux qui y participent ou y assistent par médias interposés. Menée en sciences de l’information et de la communication, la thèse brosse les régimes de désaccord qui marquent la contestation du nucléaire en Lorraine depuis quarante ans. Celle-ci s’organise autour de deux pôles : les controverses des « citoyens-enquêteurs » et les polémiques de militants occupants le territoire. L’enquête de terrain couplée au corpus de documents médiatiques et numériques montre que les acteurs s’expriment dans des arènes qui orientent l’action et les discours. Enfin, l’évolution de la communication vers des formes narratives comme le film ou le jeu vidéo traduisent une volonté de raconter l’histoire passée et à venir de la controverse / From the building of power plants through nuclear waste management, the nuclear energy never stops to cause disagreements. The thesis focus on Lorraine’s case, which stepped into the French nuclear program since 1978 with Cattenom nuclear plant (in Moselle) and continues its development with the nuclear radioactive waste disposal Cigéo (in Meuse/Haute-Marne).From the scale of territories, the work shows how people try to impeach those projects. This approach examines the classic opposition between "pro" and "anti" nuclear people. To achieve this, the notion of disagreement the diversity of Cattenom and Cigéo protests, which aren’t always led by ecologists. Depending their form, disagreements have an impact on the perception of situations, the actor’s behaviors, and produce sens for those participating or watching through media. Done in media and communication studies, the thesis covers the disagreement schemes of forty years of nuclear protest in Lorraine. These protests are built around two poles: “citizens-investigators’” controversies and activists occupiers’ polemics. The field work associated to the collection of media and digital documents shows that actors express themselves in arenas, which impact their action and discourses. Finally, communication evolves towards narrative forms, such as video and video games. It shows that actors will to tell the controversy’s past and future

This study discusses the relationship between the religious and the political in the thought and practice of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in its struggle with Israel as it views it. It critically investigates the thought and the religious framework of the movement and its mother organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. It explores the overlap between the religious and/or the ideological dimensions of the theory and practice by revealing how Hamas draws inspiration from Islam, a framework it describes as "religious". It analyses the ground on which Hamas' ideological convictions are based, and how they developed. This is being done by attempting to understand the role of religion in the formulation of the convictions (i.e. ideology) of the Muslim Brotherhood – and therefore those of Hamas - in their comprehension of the conflict with Israel. This research has sought to fill a void in the context of studying the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas by trying to explain the mechanisms of religious and political interaction and the role this interaction has played in shaping the ideological convictions of the two movements in the context of their conflict with Israel. Reviewing the religious reference of Hamas helps us to understand that any change in one of Hamas' positions does not imply the abandonment of its religious reference, but rather a shift from one considerable Islamic fiqhi (jurisprudential) opinion to another. Thus, the thesis examines the accuracy of many of the Brotherhood's and Hamas' positions and ideological beliefs, as well as comparing them to the other authentic Islamic view points. The study further highlights in detail the impact of the movement's adaptation to fixed “religious” principles and their implementation within a set of complex situations, as presented by the current state of affairs in Palestine. Moreover, the research examines Hamas' application of the Prophetic and Islamic historical experiments, as they relate to the current conflict with Israel from the movement's point of view.

No description available.

The critical gap in scholarship on power-seeking insurgent groups is to understand whether those groups adapt violent expression as a function of popular support. If such a relationship does exist, how does it work and under what conditions do violent acts increase or decrease? To understand these questions, one must understand that the ideals that make up power-seeking insurgent groups are malleable, requiring stratagem and guile in the face of internal and external violent and non-violent influence. To sustain the capacity to project violence, a power-seeking insurgent group must maintain the support of a significant portion of its host population. Without the populace’s tolerance or acceptance of violence, this agenda would not be supported over time. This reality creates a dynamic between the insurgent group and its host population, which is bi-directional, and creates profound implications for the nature of violent expression and is largely based upon environmental conditions. This research delves into these questions about insurgent groups by developing a case study on the power-seeking insurgent group Hamas and its host population, the Palestinian people. The empirical examination begins with the group’s formation in 1987 (and refers to foundations much earlier) and ends with the events of June 2014. During this period, the group, like other insurgent groups, has been suspended between its quest to achieve the values of its ardent supporters and the desire to grow popular support. By slightly modifying Max Weber’s theoretical premise that political groups must balance values with responsibilities, we can better understand how Hamas has managed the tension between supporters who demand continued violence against Israel and those that do not. With newly assembled datasets constructed by the author on Hamas’s violent acts and public statements, Israeli Targeted Killings, historical measures of popular support and extensive field interviews, the thesis offers a unique theoretical perspective on the nature of insurgent group violence by demonstrating under what conditions the group exercises violent resistance or refrains from doing so. For example, the research shows that Hamas violence against Israel follows Palestinians’ support for violence, countering the commonly held idea that Hamas acts as a vanguard of the Palestinian people. It also shows that the nature and method of Hamas violence against Israel changed once it had territorial control of Gaza. Finally, the methodological approach used in this case study can serve as a model to better understand the origins and dynamics of powerseeking insurgent groups elsewhere.

This thesis examines why party systems of some developing countries become deeper and more quickly stabilised than others. Drawing on the scholarship of party system institutionalisation in third wave democracies, the thesis argues that the field can be strengthened by looking to three factors that the current literature has taken for granted: the role of cleavages, the function of personalistic politics, and the requirement of legitimacy to assess party systems. This thesis addresses these issues and in so doing provides a novel view of how, when and why party systems in newer democracies from Latin America, Europe and Asia consolidate over time. The research considers three case studies from three regions of the world, following the most similar approach method of comparison. One country per world region has been chosen for study in detail: Chile (Latin America), Estonia (Central and Eastern Europe) and South Korea (East and Southeast Asia). They all have party systems which have become more stable over time, but they exhibit different trajectories and speeds of consolidation. The thesis uses a variety of methods. In order to infer the causes of different processes of institutionalisation from party systems’ own participants, more than 120 elite interviews were conducted in the three countries over 13 months. To evaluate the overall legitimacy of the stabilisation process, this works presents the results of almost 500 face-to-face interviews with randomly selected individuals from the population. Quantitative analyses based on secondary public opinion surveys are used to test implications and observations, and offer potential generalisations. The findings suggests: 1) Where the ideological cleavage (left-right) is a strong determinant of party support the party system is more stable, and the stronger the ideological cleavage becomes over time, the more consolidated the party system is. Here, an ideological trauma can be at the core of the limitations of the left-right scope development. 2) Party systems with personalistic leaders can consolidate, contrary to the received wisdom, if charismatic figures build their parties around programmatic lines. And 3) legitimacy should not be regarded as a dimension for the Theory of Party System Institutionalisation, because it does not contribute in any way, positive or negative, to the stability of party systems. The thesis concludes that theories of party system institutionalisation should be reconsidered with respect to cleavages, personalism and legitimacy. In so doing, the growing literature on party system institutionalisation can benefit from a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities of party systems in new democracies from different regions of the world.

L’examen de l’espace militant en Turquie à travers quatre mouvements contestataires sur la base du genre, de l’orientation sexuelle ou de l’appartenance ethnique, montre que les contextes conflictuels et repressifs peuvent créer les possibilités d’émergence de nouveaux mouvements contestataires et leur convergence. Ces mouvements, malgré leurs divergences, interdépendants dans la complexité de leurs dynamiques, se rejoignent dans le même cycle de contestation, germé dans les années 1980, maturé et émergé autour de 1990, qui devient l’acteur de la déconstruction d’un monopole idéologique, organisationnel et politique dans l’espace militant. L’interdépendance de ces mouvements, avec de multiples facteurs, favorise leurs convergences et leurs interactions qui dépendent aussi de leurs lignes de fractures et de dissociation, relatifs à la structuration interne des rapports sociaux, à leurs diverses modalités de hiérarchies organisationnelles. Ces conflits créent des freins aux innovations des organisations mais grâce au maintien de leurs alliances, ils provoquent des transformations par des luttes internes et renforcent les rapprochements des communautés autour de ces mouvements. Dans la complexité de ce processus entre interdépendances, tensions et influences réciproques, le nouveau cycle de contestation naît comme une pluralité de relations, à partir des années 2010, dans un espace intermédiaire où les concepts et les répertoires, les idées, les expériences voyagent. / This study of Turkish activism, focussing on four protest mouvements based on gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity, shows that a repressive context can actually open up possibilities for the emergence of new protest mouvements as well as for their coalescences. Despite their differences, these movements are still interdependent in their dynamics and complexity, and belong to the same cycle of contention, which was born in the eighties and matured in the nineties when it became a powerful agent in the deconstruction of the ideological, organizational, and political monopoly of the militant space. The interdependenceof these mouvements, based on several factors, promotes their convergence and their interactions, which also depend on their cleavages, relative to the internal structure of social relations and to various forms of their organizational hierarchies. These conflicts are slowing down renewal and the innovation process within these organisations. Thanks to the sustained alliances, though, they cause internal disputes that bring transformation and reinforce the concord of communities around these mouvements. From the complexities of this process between interdependence, tensions and mutual influences, a new cycle of contention arises in 2010, in the form of a multiplicity of relations within an intermediate space where concepts, repertoires, ideas and experiences are in mouvement.

The thesis employs the political process approach within social movement theory (SMT) to examine in a comparative fashion two distinctly different opposition movements in southern Russia. One is the environmental movement in Krasnodar Krai and the other is the ethno-national Balkar movement in Kabardino-Balkaria. The political process approach focuses on the role and interaction of political opportunities, mobilising structures, and social movement framing for both movements, and seeks to explore their role in social movement mobilisation dynamics in Russia’s non-democratic context. The combination of the analysis of the three variables of political opportunities, mobilising structures, and social movement framing allows for fresh perspectives on both SMT and post-Soviet area studies. The thesis is particularly concerned with networks. It argues that in non-democratic contexts, the role of networks is more important than in democratic contexts.