This dissertation examines the forms of media that are most productive for the formation of social and political movements at their earliest stages. The problem it confronts is a contemporary one: the dominant forms of social media on the internet do not allow for the slow and focused deliberation this is demanded for radical ideas that are attempting to undermine a status quo to begin to take root. Movements rise and fall very quickly, following the metabolism of sites like Facebook and Twitter, without having the long-term impact they seek. By first looking historically at a series of pre-digital case studies – starting with letters before the scientific revolution and moving through petitions, small newspapers, samizdat and all the way to zines in the 1990s – aspects of more effective incubatory media will present themselves. Each chapter in this first half of the book zeroes in on the affordances of these particular forms of communication that made them so useful. After having looked at pre-digital communication, the dissertation will then turn to contemporary case studies and the challenges posed by social media for activists of all stripes looking to incubate their ideas on these platforms. Starting with the Arab Spring in Egypt, which offers a cautionary tale of a movement overtaken by the social media metabolism and moving through the 2010s toward Black Lives Matter, there is a progression of awareness about what tools the internet can provide for communication and which prove most productive for offering sustainability to a movement. The conclusion is one gained from the juxtaposition of the historical and the contemporary, which builds to an awareness of what affordances are required for a radical idea to avoid burning out.

Bibliographic Note Sundal, Kendra. 2013. La Frontière/Il Confine: French and Italian Migration Discourse. 85 pages. Master's thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies. Supervisor doc. PhDr. RNDr. Nikola Hynek, M.A., PgDipRes, PhD Abstract This work analyzes the historical background and discourse on migration in Italy and France, focusing on migration from and through former colonies in North Africa. Drawing on a feminist methodological approach, the work discusses how migrants may be perceived or treated differently based on gender, and how this impacts (or is impacted by) policies. In particular, one illustrative event, the closure of the Franco-Italian border in April 2011, is analyzed more deeply using the theory of domopolitics as introduced by William Walters. By tracing the history and the discourse about migration and integration from colonial times to the present, this event and other recent debates related to Mediterranean migration are contextualized. Key Terms: migration, France, Italy, borders, Arab Spring, domopolitics, feminist methodology, discourse analysis, historical representation

The master thesis titled Italian Political Discourse and Securitization of Immigration: the Case of the Maghreb revolutions in 2011 deals with the issue of mass immigration waves reaching Italian shores and, in particular, the tiny island of Lampedusa during the initial phase of the so called Arab Spring. Its main goal lies in reconstruction and interpretation of the political discourse led by Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government presenting the immigration crisis as a serious threat to national and potentially to European security. The first part introduces the general theoretical framework. The securitization theory of the Copenhagen School was used as an instrument for the thesis, including major criticism raised by the authors belonging to the social constructivist approach. In the second part, the author tries to characterize the basic historical and political context and clarifies the specifics of immigration in contemporary Italy. The last segment contains structuralized discourse analysis of the 2011 events and explores the extraordinary measures adopted and implemented in reaction to the government rhetoric at both the national and supranational levels. In this respect, the author pays special attention to how the process of negotiations finally led to the revision of the EU...

Why do revolutions happen? What role do structures, institutions, and actors play in precipitating (or preventing) them? Finally, What might compel social mobilization against a regime in the face of potentially insurmountable odds? These questions are all fundamentally about state-society (strategic) interactions, and elite and societal preference formation over time. The self-immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010, served as a focal point upon which over twenty years of corrupt, coercive authoritarian rule were focused into a single, unified challenge to the Ben Ali regime. The regime's brutality was publicized via social media activism and satellite television, precipitating mass mobilization across Tunisia and, eventually, throughout the region and beyond. In light of the rapid and unforeseen nature of these events, scholars writing about the causes of the Arab Spring have focused their critiques on scholarship that they felt overemphasized the role of institutions and elite-level actors over 'under the radar' changes within society. This paper essentially agrees with this point of view, but is not content to simply 'throw out' institutionalism. As Timur Kuran (1991) argued in the wake of the unforeseen collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, one cannot understand revolution without understanding the 'true' preferences of social actors. In this way, the inevitability of revolutionary surprises seems a given so long as analysts continue to look from the top-down. Yet, this paper contends that institutions do still matter. They matter because different institutional arrangements incentivize and constrain regime strategies, which, in turn, inform the strategic calculations and preference orderings within society. These two societal variables are determined - in part - by the degree of regime flexibility, and they affect whether, how, and where social actors choose to vent their dissent. This paper proposes a model for the development of contentious social mobilization under authoritarianism. In order to do so, two models - one game-theoretic, and the other rooted in the contentious politics subfield of political sociology - are synthesized toward elucidating how altered societal preferences affect strategic interactions between the regime and society over time and during acute contentious episodes. The synthesized model is then illustrated through narrative case studies of two North African states that experienced divergent outcomes in the wake of the Arab Spring: Tunisia and Morocco. The limited spaces and institutions for the expression of dissent in Tunisia gradually changed societal preferences over time. In 2010, Tunisians' preferences shifted from various socioeconomic demands and other issue-specific grievances toward a galvanized demand for the fall of the regime. In Morocco, on the other hand, social actors, by and large, continued to prefer limited reforms to a complete upheaval of the political system. This paper contends that this divergence in preferences and therefore outcomes was in part determined by the variation in the two regimes' respective strategic mixes of concessions and/or coercion. To the extent that such strategies and institutions were more flexible - i.e. were more permissive of (limited) political contention and contestation - social movements were less likely to become emboldened against the regime.

The people in Tunisia demanded democracy and civil liberties, which led to large-scale demonstrations against the Tunisian regime in December 2010. The demonstrations against the authoritarian regime was considered to be the beginning of the Arab Spring. Of all states that was affected by the Arabic Spring, Tunisia became that one country that succeeded their transition from an authoritarian state to a democratic one. In order to analyze why Tunisia became a democratic state, this study aims to clarify what factors that affected the democratization process. Through the theoretical framework of Samuel P. Huntington, the factors that affected the third wave democratization are used in this study in order to analyze the Tunisian democratization and transition. Through analyzation; deepening legitimacy problems of the regime and economic growth was considered to affect the Tunisian democratization. Actions of external actors partly affected the country’s democratization. However, religious changes and snowballing effects was considered not to have an impact on the democratization and transition towards democracy.

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Muslim women’s rights, and gender equality in the Muslim world, are commonly discussed subjects within the academic world. Feminism, as a term, is often connected to this topic of discussion. This thesis aims to analyze two different perspectives concerning how these rights should be achieved: Islamic feminism, using internal resources, and Muslim feminism, using external resources. Islamic feminism, as a strategy, proposes that by interpreting the Quran, the ultimate revelation of God, Islam could provide the central and egalitarian meaning of the Quran. There is disagreement within the academic community whether Islamic feminism would enable these rights. Muslim feminism, as a counterpoint to Islamic feminism, proposes that the state must become secularized. Rendering Islam and the state as separate entities.    This thesis will utilize the theoretical perspective on Islam and feminism from five feministic academics. They all have different backgrounds, standpoints, and approaches towards the development of Muslim women’s rights, as well as what strategies they suggest to improve them. These strategies encounter different kinds of difficulties. The Islamic feminism, which uses the Quran, runs the risk of being too heavily associated with already established interpretations of the Quran. It may be seen as intertwined with existing fundamentalist views. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Muslim feminism may create a divide between Islam and women’s rights. This thesis aims to present the potential of different theoretical perspectives on Islam and feminism as well as the limitations on suggested strategies for improvement of Muslim women’s rights.

The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the Syrian conflict by usingHistoriographical Comparative Study as a method. The study compared five different books onthe Syrian conflict. The purpose of the study is not to present "pure facts" but the main purposeis to interpret these books on how they view the Syrian conflict. In other words, how have theauthors interpreted and written about the conflict and then compare with each other. It wasnecessary to choose a theory for this work and there was nothing better than realism to explaininternational relations, and the theory was most suited to the study's problem area. The resultshowed that all the authors had different views on the study's issues, it could be found that somebooks had almost the same view while some other books had completely different views. Butall books agreed that external actors have influenced and escalated the Syrian conflict. Asrealism describes, no state sacrifices its self-interest due to moral principles. Which most of thebooks selected for this study agrees that all states involved in the Syrian conflict were due toself-interest. / Syftet med denna studie är att erbjuda en djupare förståelse av den syriska konflikten, med hjälpav Historiografisk komparativ studie som metod. Studie går på att jämföra fem olika böckersom är skrivna om den syriska konflikten. Syftet med studien är inte att presentera ”rena fakta”utan huvudsyftet är att tolka dessa böcker om hur de ser på den syriska konflikten. Alltså hurhar de tolkat och skrivit om konflikten för att kunna jämföra med varandra. Det var nödvändigtatt välja en teori för denna arbetet och det fanns inget bättre än realismen för att förklarainternationella relationer, och teorin var mest passande till studiens problemområde. Resultatetblev att alla författarna hade olika syn angående studiens frågeställningar, det kunde hittas attvissa böcker hade nästan samma syn medan vissa andra böcker hade helt olika syn. Men Allaböcker var överens om att externa aktörer har påverkat och eskalerat den syriska konflikten.Som realismen beskriver att ingen stat offrar sitt egenintresse för moraliska principer. Vilkettalar de flesta böcker som valdes till denna studie för detta påstående och är överens om att allastater som var inblandade i den syriska konflikten var på grund av sitt egenintresse.

[pt] Esta é uma pesquisa no campo da internet e política nos subcampos da esfera pública e do ativismo transnacional. O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar a constituição de públicos transnacionais, que se expressam por meio do ativismo, utilizando as mídias digitais. A partir de uma revisão de literatura, serão analisados dois casos emblemáticos do ativismo transnacional: os protestos coordenados de 15 fevereiro de 2003, realizados simultaneamente em diversos lugares do mundo contra a iminente Guerra do Iraque, e os protestos de 2011 no Egito até a renúncia do então presidente Hosni Mubarak, localizados no contexto da Primavera Árabe, que incluiu eventos parecidos em outros países da região e forte uso das mídias sociais. Serão trabalhadas as seguintes questões nos casos estudados: 1) quais as características desses públicos?; 2) de que forma as mídias sociais são utilizadas?; 3) o que torna esses movimentos transnacionais? Nossa tentativa é a de contribuir para as pesquisas sobre o ativismo - e sobre a esfera pública - transnacional, utilizando como fonte estudos já realizados na área. / [en] This is a research in the field of Internet and Politics in the subfield of the public sphere and transnational activism. The aim of this work is to identify the constitution of transnational publics, which are expressed through activism, using digital media. Based on a literature review, two emblematic cases of transnational activism will be analyzed: the coordinated protests of 15 February 2003, held simultaneously in many countries against the imminent Iraq War, and the 2011 protests in Egypt that took place until the resignation of the president Hosni Mubarak, and were located in the context of the Arab Spring, which included similar events in other Arab countries and strong use of social media. Both cases will be studied in light of the following questions: 1) which are the characteristics of these publics that may be formed around certain issues?; 2) how was social media used?; 3) what makes these publics transnational? By doing so, we hope to contribute to the research on transnational activism and public sphere.

This study addresses the relationship between social capital and political action in the Middle East. The research uncovers indicators of how social capital correlates with democratic action. Using data from the 2005 World Values Survey, the examination centers on indicators of trust and membership in civic organizations and how they relate to political action in the region. The paper concludes with discussion of how trust-building and reciprocity can be interpreted within the political context of the Middle East, and how the relevance of social capital will be an unavoidable consideration in the transition away from autocracy in the region, especially when considering recent events.