L'objectif principal de ce travail est d'expliquer et de comprendre les relations existantes entre les territorialités en compétition dans l’espace cisjordanien et les mobilisations de groupes et d’activistes engagés dans la résistance populaire contre l’occupation israélienne entre 2005 et 2016. Les territorialités prises en considération dans ce travail rassemblent celles des acteurs israéliens de l’occupation, des militants palestiniens étudiés dans cette thèse et regroupés autour d’un objet construit que nous avons nommé la « RP » ainsi que celles des multiples agents politiques et sociaux présents dans ce conflit.Pour cela, nous adoptons une approche scientifique interactionniste propre à l’étude des relations de pouvoir, des politiques de conflits et de la sociologie des mobilisations. Nous accordons une place importante à la description de la situation de colonisation de peuplement et au décryptage de la configuration (au sens éliassien du terme) sociopolitique cisjordanienne afin d’analyser les interactions conflictuelles qui engagent les mobilisations de nos enquêtés. De manière générale et en relation avec notre objet d’étude, il apparaît que l’entrée par la notion de territorialité est tout à fait heuristique pour traiter notre problématique. Elle permet aussi d’expliquer et de comprendre les mobilisations de nos acteurs de la RP à partir de l’étude contextualisée de multiples processus politiques. / The main goal of this research is to explain and understand the existing relationships between the territorialities in competition in the West Bank and the mobilizations of groups and individual activists involved in popular resistance against the territorial occupation between 2005 and 2016. The territorialities analysed in this work are threefold: those of the agents of the Israeli occupation; those of the Palestinian activists examined and defined in this thesis under our proposed term “PR” (Popular Resistance); and the territorialities of the various existing political and social entities in this conflict.To pursue this goal, we adopt an interactionist approach well-suited to the study of power relations, contentious politics and social movements. We choose to focus in particular on describing the situation of settler colonization and on the interpretation of the socio-political configuration in the West Bank (based on Norbert Elias’ theories), as these are central in order to analyze the conflictual interactions that motivate our interviewees to take part in the mobilization. In general, and as concerns our subject of study, the notion of territoriality appears to offer a heuristic approach to address our topic. It also enables us to explain and understand the mobilizations of our PR actors on the basis of a contextualized study of multiple political processes.

This thesis investigates US state level politics framing of the BLM protests during 2020, by inductively identifying frames and then proceeding to study if and on what grounds securitization occurs in these. Press statements, interviews and documents from eight Mayors and Governors in six of the states where the protests have been the most prominent are analyzed. From this material, four frames have been identified: the alienated outsider frame, the constructive rage frame, the limited guardian frame, and the desecuritizing frame. Recent developments in securitization theory investigate human life and dignity as a reference object, making a case for integrating humanitarianism in terms of grounds for justifying extraordinary measures. Three grounds for securitization are investigated empirically in the identified frames: state, social and humanitarian security. The study concludes that whilst both state security and to a lesser degree humanitarian security are detected in the identified frames, societal security seems to be the most prominent. This suggests that large-scale identities are the most common reference objects in the treated context. Further research is encouraged, especially in terms of distinguishing potential frame alignment processes by looking at a greater number of states over a longer period of time.

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This dissertation analyses the ability of Chinese lawyers to use administrative litigation to protect individuals and groups from an authoritarian state that frequently infringes on their rights. These plaintiffs fill administrative courts in China, opposing the overzealous tactics of police, challenging the expropriation of their land, and disputing the seizure and demolition of their homes. Empirically, it relies on several unique data sources in a mixed-methodological approach. Qualitative and small-n quantitative data from 126 interviews with a random sample of Chinese lawyers and 52 additional interviews are supplemented by documentary sources. These findings are then tested against official data and a large survey of Chinese lawyers. This research demonstrates that administrative litigation is part of a polycentric authoritarian system that helps the Chinese state to monitor its agents, allows limited political participation, and facilitates economic development (Chapter One). By giving ordinary Chinese a chance to hold their local governments accountable in court, administrative litigation represents a significant step towards rule of law, but its limited scope means that it has not been accompanied by dramatic liberalisation (Chapter Three). In part, this is because the most prolific and successful administrative litigators are politically embedded lawyers, insiders who challenge the state in court but eschew the most radical cases and tactics (Chapter Four). The tactics that allow politically embedded lawyers to successfully litigate administrative cases rely on and contribute to China’s polycentric authoritarianism by drawing in other state, quasi-state, and non-state actors (Chapter Five). Multinationals in China are largely failing to contribute to the development of China’s legal system because they readily accept preferential treatment from the Chinese state as an alternative to litigation (Chapter Six). While administrative litigation bolsters China’s polycentric authoritarianism in the short term, it offers tremendous potential for rationalisation, liberalisation, and even democratisation in the long term.

Existing scholarship suggests terrorism is an ineffective method of political contestation; groups rarely achieve their political objectives and are often disrupted by the security services. These findings invite us to look again at the dominant rational choice paradigm, which suggests that terrorism is selected as the best strategy to achieve predetermined goals. Unpicking the assumptions underpinning this model using historical case studies, comparative analysis and typology development, this thesis broadens our interpretation of what those who use terrorism seek to achieve. It does so via a tripartite framework. First, employing a new reading of American pragmatist thought, interpreting militant group goals as culturally and socially mediated problems opens up a new vista of outcomes, in particular examining the way terrorism seeks to change relations between people. Second, using Social Movement Theory as its organising framework, an empirically derived typology of militant groups sets out the background political conditions and organisational characteristics of 28 dormant groups. Using existing models of interpreting outcomes to assess these historical cases demonstrates the unmet challenges of providing robust explanations for why terrorism ends and what it achieves. Third, the thesis explores the promise of a mechanism and process-led approach to explaining outcomes. It does so through in-depth examination of two historical case studies: Kach and the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army. Despite being classified as failures, using largely neglected primary sources, the case studies reveal a range of fascinating and important outcomes that still resonate in Israel and Yemen today. Most of these methodological and conceptual tools are being applied to the question of terrorism's outcomes for only the first or second time. In doing so, this thesis offers greater depth than existing scholarship on how terrorism ends, by looking beyond measures such as success and failure in interpreting outcomes, whilst affording greater breadth through its ability to make comparative assessments at the level of mechanisms and processes. The result is a more detailed and robust set of explanations as to how terrorism ends and what it achieves, illustrated through detailed historical case studies of two interesting, yet often neglected, groups.

自1990年代中起國大陸經濟發展欣欣向榮之際，城市治理議題則圍繞在國家如何平抑發展中可能的基層動亂。本研究選取中國大陸經濟發展前沿城市的上海基層社區--居民委員會選舉作為觀察主題，直接選舉的推動是否會影響社區政治中黨國的單一獨斷？學習效果(learning effects)的理論預設是，隨著選舉演練次數和民眾政治參與的增加，會引發「批判公民」(critical citizens)意識的興起。這樣的理論預設是否能在上海基層選舉中看到？ 本研究觀察2003年到2012年的居委會換屆選舉。發現近年來，社區民眾對黨國的挑戰並未因為選舉限制的不斷增強而退卻，反之，民眾會利用選舉過程來挑戰官方威權或是作為社區事務發聲的管道。社區民眾如何在嚴酷的制度環境中發起對當權者的政治挑戰？本文將從居委會選舉中的選舉競爭，分析民眾挑戰執政當權所使用的資源稟賦。最後，通過基層競選觀察獲得的啟發是，民眾權利意識的提升，使得黨國忠誠不再凌駕一切。開放直接選舉的制度效果，如現代化理論所昭示的，存在學習效應並且在中產階級社區最為明顯。 / Undergoing the dramatic development of economic and social change in China, local governments pay great strength on the issue of governance for preventing any potential contentious activities. Facing the challenges of local governance, the Chinese governments adopt “Direct elections" for reducing the tension between state and society. In Urban city, direct elections as an important political reform, have been initiated in Residential Committee. Under the CCP party-state system, the local elections have been under severe surveillance. The negative result sharply deduces citizens’ political efficacy, especially on the manner of the participating in voting and political confidence towards local governments. However, in recent years, we observed that some Residential Committees in Shanghai experienced electoral competitions. In these cases, citizens organized the campaign to challenge the authority. The main questions are below: why Chinese people challenge the local authority? And how do they mobilize the campaign? Finally, how should we evaluate these political subjects? Based on these experiences, I conclude that the social-economical development may bring positive consequences on Chinese political reform.

<p>How does collective action operate in digital space, particularly for those social movements at the cutting edge of technologically innovative contentious politics? This dissertation analyzes activist (and hacktivist) groups engaged in what I call <i>digital contention</i> with state and corporate institutions over the future of Internet policy and governance, or what they see as “the freedom of the Internet.” Based on case studies of the Digital Rights movement and the Anonymous hacktivist collective, I use a combination of computational and qualitative analyses of online texts, along with participant-observation at meetings and protest events, to explore how certain collective action dynamics are changing in digital space. Specifically, these include how movements internally perceive political opportunities and threats, as well as how they construct frames to communicate to external audiences. I find that: 1) Political opportunity is less important than threat for activists in digital contention, which is likely due to the lower costs of collective action; and 2) The digital divide and technological knowledge gap create a barrier to frame resonance which digital activists address either through “strategic inclusiveness” or “communities of anonymity,” both of which encourage diversity among participants while also reifying other inequalities in different ways. These findings have significance for the study of social movements, communication and technology studies, and Internet policy. I argue that they portend changing dynamics that may ultimately affect all forms of collective action, and indeed the balance of power in whole societies, in the future as digital technology continues to spread into every facet of our lives.</p>

The diploma thesis Public sphere in networked society concerns about the relation of public sphere and cyberspace. Cyberspace is defined as new social institution, which is not embodied Habermasian normative ideal of critical public sphere, but in contrary it constitute new forms of inequalities and new forms of fragmentarization and commercialization. Explored are therefore also theories which critically deal with concept of public sphere and better describe the reality of cyberspace. The expansion of Cyberspace and horizontal communication network also relate with transformation of contentious politics. The thesis provides an overview of historical development of new action repertoire of contention - virtual sit-in. As an embodiment of all these societal shifts, which are seen as an elements of change in power balance, is presented Operation Payback orchestrated by hacktivist group Anonymous. Keywords Cyberspace, public sphere, hacktivism, action repertoires, repertoires of contention, virtual sit-in, electronic civil disobedience, Anonymous, Operation Payback