This thesis explores the meaning of "youth" and the political mobilisation of young people in key moments of crisis in Europe. Between 2005 and 2011, youth became critical for the consolidation of the authoritarian regime structures in Russia. I show that this process included the restructuring of the discourse about youth, the physical mobilisation of young people, and the isolation of oppositional youth. How valid are these findings for regime crises more generally? I answer this question through an analysis of the breakdown of the authoritarian Soviet Union during perestroika, the breakdown of unconsolidated democracy during the last years of the Weimar Republic, and the crisis of the democratic regime in France around 1968. The cross-regional and cross-temporal comparison of these episodes demonstrates that regimes lacking popular democratic support compensate for their insufficient legitimacy by trying to mobilise youth symbolically and politically. By developing a new method of textual analysis which combines qualitative content analysis and network analysis, the thesis offers a novel social science perspective on the meaning of youth in the four cases. My study shows how discursive structures about youth condition the possibility of political mobilisation of young people. The thesis makes three contributions to comparative politics. First, on an empirical level, my study offers new insights into social movements at moments of regime crisis in different political settings. Second, on a conceptual level, I refine our understanding of the symbolic significance of the terms "youth" and "generation" in moments when society is reorienting itself. I also examine the significance of "crisis" and argue that the term expresses openness and the possibility to remake the past and future. Third, on a methodological level, my thesis builds on the growing interest in textual analysis by developing a novel multi-level approach in three linguistic contexts, which offers insights into the structure of public discourse and the actors involved.

This study aims to analyse women’s self-employment in five regions of Europe, namely Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, North-West Europe and Western Europe in two years, 2002 and 2016. To assess the factors affecting women’s self-employment in Europe we base our analysis on push and pull theory and as far as the quantitative part is concerned we estimate a probit model. Our research questions are the following: What socio-economic factors influence women to enter self-employment in the five regions of Europe? How are these factors related to the push and pull theory? Is there a trend of convergence over time in the five European regions studied? The main findings are that being women decreases the probability to become self-employed in the five European regions, except in the Northern part of Europe. The result suggests that women more often than men are pushed into self-employment as they have to balance work with family. Being young (18-35) also decreases the probability of being self-employed compared to middle age individual (36-50) in the year 2002 and 2016. Individuals with low and medium-skill level have a lower probability of being self-employed in comparison to the individual with high skill. Regarding the research questions, this study found that variable age (18-36), age (51-65), married, children, medium education, high education, low skill and high skill are factors that influence women in their decision to become self-employed. Observing the change over time of self-employment, we found that the probability increases being selfemployed in Southern Europe whereas it decreases in Northern Europe.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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No description available.

A number of academic studies assert that ex-servicemen were subject to intimidation, some killed as a punishment for war service, and that they formed a marginalised group in Irish society. Evidence based on records of the victims and perpetrators demonstrates otherwise; intimidation was mostly for reasons other than war service, for instance, membership of a particular class such as landowners or the judiciary, or for specific actions, including informing, supplying to or joining the Crown Forces. The violence towards ex-servicemen was geographically focussed, varying in intensity in correlation to the level of violence experienced by other sectors of the population; support for republicanism varied significantly by location. The great majority of ex-servicemen were not intimidated; many served in the IRA. With the formation of the Free State there is little evidence that either the State or community marginalised ex-servicemen. They were treated equally before the legislature and the courts. Some half of the Free State army, formed to defeat extreme republicans, were ex-servicemen. Remembrance took place with considerable community support and acceptance from the State. According to credible contemporary reports they were not discriminated against and held high positions in the civil service, army and police. They were not a homogeneous group. Neither war service nor loyalism defined them; many were supporters of Fianna Fáil. Britain fulfilled its imperial obligation to the ex-servicemen with housing and pension benefits considerably more favourable than those for their counterparts in Britain. The view that ex-servicemen were persecuted became persuasive. They became perceived through the prism of commemoration, and with the establishment of a republican historiography assigned to a national amnesia. Loyalist lobbying groups highlighted perceived discrimination to a willing press. It was a convenient collusion but at odds with the evidence. In reality the group truly marginalised after the Civil War was the anti-Treaty republicans.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre des études postcoloniales. En effet, si traditionnellement les idéologies des hiérarchies font des oppositions binaires centre/périphérie, oppresseur/oppressé, colonisateur/colonisé, l’expression de la rencontre Afrique/Occident, les tentatives de conciliation des vues, le dépassement des antagonismes, la relecture de l’hypothèse des cultures en conflit et des identités pures demeurent des axes de réflexion propres à l’ère postcoloniale. Ces nouveaux centres d’intérêt dépassent largement les discours hégémoniques du contexte contraignant des pratiques coloniales et fondement de la rencontre Afrique/Occident.Cependant, des questions demeurent. En effet, si dans les sociétés postcoloniales, ce qui est premier et opératoire n’est ni Moi ni l’Autre, mais ce qu’il y a entre nous, comment la relation à soi passe par un processus ambivalent où autrui constitue un environnement nécessaire à l’éclosion de ma subjectivité ? Comment, le sujet postcolonial considère-t-il l’Autre, celui qu’il rencontre, découvre et s’imprègne de l’altérité ? Comment le regard sur cet Autre évolue, s’adapte-t-il ? Dans quelle mesure la notion même d’identité pure peut-elle être remise en question ?Dans cette thèse, à partir des théories postcoloniales, le thème de la rencontre Afrique-Occident réexaminé à partir des romans Un Nègre à Paris de Dadié, Les Soleils des Indépendances de Kourouma, L'Aventure ambiguë de Kane et Elonga de Rawiri Ntyugwetondo donne l’opportunité de réévaluer le trope de l’altérité radicale et, de façon sous-jacente, l’hypothèse des cultures en conflit souvent considérée comme l’axe déterminant dans le rapport qui lie l’Afrique à l’Occident. Le travail consiste à montrer que cet axe de lecture, s’il paraît à première vue manifeste, détourne l’attention des liens interdépendants et complexes qui confèrent aux protagonistes des identités hybrides, instables; parce qu’évoluant dans des espaces interstitiels, les ruptures des frontières, qui les contraignant à terme à la quête d’un compromis, à la négociation des différences culturelles.La rencontre est aussi celle des univers linguistiques. En filigrane, le problème de la traduction qui est posé. La thèse discute l’esthétique qui émerge de la confrontation symboliques des langues dans le « Third Space » ; elle montre comment le divers refaçonne la langue d'écriture et lui propose d'autres aventures, une troisième voie-voix permettant de négocier les différences culturelles / Pas de résumé anglais

This thesis examines the effect of the Euro crisis on the construction of European identities in three case study countries- Germany, Ireland and Poland. Combining a social constructivist approach to European identities with the constructivist and discursive institutionalist literature on ideational change and crisis, it investigates the extent to which the crisis constituted a 'critical juncture' for European identity discourses. Through extensive qualitative frame analysis of political and media discourse at key moments of the crisis, it examines how European identities are constructed through the debates about the crisis. The central argument is that the Euro crisis has had little effect on European identities because actors construct the crisis in their respective national contexts. In doing this, they draw on existing identities and ideas which then 'endogenises' the crisis into the existing national discourses. Where identity change is possible, it is subtle rather than a dramatic shift. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the EU has remained completely unified. Because the crisis generally serves to reinforce, rather than challenge, existing identities, attachments to national sovereignty and old national stereotypes have created or reinforced divisions particularly between northern and southern Europe and core and periphery.

When compared to the other candidate states of Central and Eastern Europe, Romania emerged as a laggard of transition. Its integration into the European Union has been marked by much uncertainty and setbacks, as well as profound delays in fulfilling the EU's entry conditions. As a difficult case, the dynamics of Romania's EU accession provide insight into the potential and limits of the EU's leverage, revealing how domestic factors can be decisive in constraining external influence. Focusing on the reform trajectory in the fields of judiciary reforms, anti-corruption and external border policies between 1989 and 2007, this study assesses the interaction between EU politics and domestic politics and the role of domestic factors in slowing down internal reforms. By identifying the domestic conditions under which conditionality is likely to more, or less, successful, this study contributes to the Europeanization and enlargement literature. By assessing the preparations for accession in the field of Justice and Home Affairs, this research also fills a major lacuna in the existing specialised literature.

This dissertation is an ethnographic analysis of Russian-speaking migrants in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in the context of European Union incorporation of Eastern European states, internal E.U. integration, and increasing surveillance of the E.U. outer borders. I investigate how these processes are causing Europeans to redeploy ideas of Eastern Europe as a cultural and political "other." European Union integration of individual countries' economies, governance, and national identities has not been a straightforward process. European Union and individual states reinvent their national identities by defending their geographic, cultural, social, and economic borders against Eastern and Southern "others." However, the discourses and policies relating to Eastern Europeans and other migrants result in adverse social and economic conditions for them in The Netherlands. My analysis is based on a total of fourteen months of ethnographic research with Russian-speaking artists, architects, sex-workers, street sellers, homeless people, businessmen, and scientists from the former-Soviet States in the Netherlands from 2001 to 2003. I found that most of these individuals faced some social exclusion in the Netherlands based on their identity as "Eastern Europeans," "migrants," and "newcomers." Dutch society has long been known as one of the most "tolerant" in Europe with its emphasis on human rights, support of development projects around the globe, generous social benefits for its population, and pragmatic attitude toward drug use and prostitution. However, the combination of the European Union's eastern expansion, post-September 11 fears of Islamic terrorism, history of East/West relationships, and recent growth of migration to the Netherlands have all tested Dutch tolerance. Eastern Europeans in the Netherlands exist in a liminal position; they may at times be marginalized because of stereotypes about them but they may also be "tolerated" when they follow Dutch cultural practices and do not become an economic burden to the Dutch state. Contrary to Dutch and European stereotypes, migrants are not necessarily poverty-stricken and many choose to migrate to the Netherlands because of personal connections or an interest in Dutch society. Ultimately, Russian-speakers' experiences of belonging (and not belonging) highlight the constructed nature of such notions as "Europe," "Western," "Dutch," and "cultural integration."