This thesis explores the delegitimation concept in an electoral authoritarian context by studying how religious institutions seek to delegitimise the autocratic tendencies of the government. The thesis conducts a case study of the main religious institutions in Zambia, where the response to the authoritarian practices by the government is analysed and reviewed through a qualitative textual analysis. Newspaper articles and written statements by the churches are the central material for the study. The results of the analysis show that during the period of 2016-2020, the main religious institutions have been highly critical of the actions by the government and openly criticised them through public progressive statements as well as rejected to join activities that were hosted or organised by the government. However, the results also show that the response has been divided among the otherwise unified religious actors, where some churches have been less bold in their criticism and rejection of the government. While still regarded as a strong response to authoritarian practices, this split in response does denote that the main religious institutions’ efforts to delegitimise the government is in some sense weakened.

In contemporary politics it is argued there exists a friction and contradiction between the right-wing, conservative parties that are gaining prominence around the world, among them BJP in India, and the feminist movement; one movement striving for the preservation of traditions and the other for change. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and compare differences in how a political party with strong affiliation and background in a nationalistic ideology communicates laws which affect women’s opportunities for societal advancement, doing this by analysing the religious, cultural and symbolic aspects of Hindutva ideology. Do they contradict each other? Through qualitative discourse analysis a comparative case study is performed on the Maternity Benefit Amendment Act of 2017, BJP political manifestos, excerpts from books and statements made by BJP leaders and affiliated key persons. The thesis presents the argument that the two discourses present contradicting ideas of women’s societal participation when analysed through a theoretical framework based on gender ideals; one set of material pointing to the importance of their economic and societal integration, and one on the importance of women’s role as mothers, and her protection. The study adds a different perspective on the friction between nationalistic Hindutva beliefs and contemporary, progressive legislation by analysing key concepts of gender ideals drawn from Hinduism and the Hindutva movement.

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After years of fragmented and unsuccessful attempts to put culture at the top of the EU agenda for external relations, on the 8th of June 2016 something changed. That day the HR/VR Federica Mogherini addressed the European Parliament and the Council with the 2016 Joint Communication ‘Towards an EU strategy for international cultural relations’. With this document the European Union aimed at providing culture with a new and more important role as a soft power instrument in its external relations. However, its approval came in times of identity crisis and political insecurity for the Union. The Brexit vote and the rise of Euroscepticism highlighted the fragile foundations of the policy and the still divided European scenario. This thesis analyses the historical context that led to the approval of the 2016 strategy and provides the reader with a critical analysis of the structural and practical outcomes and challenges of its implementation. Through this research it was highlighted how the Union is still missing a unified and shared cultural identity due to the lack of agreement concerning the so-called ‘European values’. Moreover, due to its objective of promoting the European culture and identity abroad, the strategy risks being seen as an attempt to export and force ‘Europeanness’ on third and partner countries. In addition, this analysis highlighted that also European politicians and relevant personalities still manifest divided opinions concerning the purpose and objectives of the EU international cultural relations and are missing out on the potential of culture for the implementation of larger projects. Finally, the work underlines how current global priorities such as health, sustainability, digitalisation and migration should be considered and included in future attempts to foster international cultural cooperation. The theoretical focus of this analysis includes resources retrieved from EU documents including treaties, communications, agreements and conclusion and from the latest reports concerning data and results of the EU projects implemented under the 2016 Joint Communication.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze how the governmental discourse concerning adolescents has changed over the past 30 years. How ”problems” regarding adolescents are represented within three different governmental commissions are therefore analyzed. Furthermore, the aim is to reconstruct the normative assumptions in which these commissions are produced. Both the method and the theoretical framework of the thesis, is based on Carol Bacchi’s ”what´s the problem represented to be?” (WPR-approach). The results of the analyses shown how there has been a change in how the governmental commission represents adolescents.  30 years ago they were not considered as an important group at all. Today they are at least pinpointed as an important group that should be considered in the making of policies. The results also indicate that the changes in governmental discourse regarding adolescents can be narrowed down to thee different notions; power; participation and influence.

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During the twenty-first century attention towards climate change and its consequences has increased significantly and somehow it reached its peak when young activist Greta Thunberg started what has become one of the largest movements for the climate in 2018. Her school strike has created debate and given rise to demonstrations and collective actions around the globe. The purpose of this study is therefore to bring clarity to the framing processes which has contributed to this development. Consequently, this analysis has been conducted through a descriptive framing analysis with a focus on what frames Greta Thunberg has used to describe climate change, including a description of her goal with the strikes and a discussion of features associated with mass mobilisation. Building on the theoretical framework from social movement researchers Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow the results have revealed three main frames; a crisis frame, a parental frame and a hierarchical frame as well as features within Thunberg’s message has been discovered which ad insights to Benford and Snow’s discussion of what can create resonant frames. By describing how Thunberg has framed her cause this study concludes that the coherence between her actions, behaviour as well as who she is in relation to her frames has contributed to a message that emphasises collective and/or self-efficacy which encourages people to follow her lead.

In the last 20 years, international donors have made efforts to increase the participation of minorities into development programmes. Despite these efforts, development actors continues to receive critique from postcolonial theorists for continuing to reinforce neocolonial and Western-centered tendencies onto minorities. Given this background, the purpose of this study is to investigate how indigenous peoples in Latin America and their issues are represented and allowed to participate in and challenge the development agenda. This is done by analysing how ‘indigeneity’ and indigenous peoples’ issues are portrayed in reports by international donors. Through a discourse analysis of two reports from the World Bank and ECLAC, this study finds that indigenous peoples are still not allowed to challenge the standard development agenda. Even though improvements have been made concerning explicit representations of indigenous peoples knowledges and values as inferior, the findings of this study show that indigenous peoples’ issues are often represented to be legitimate only when its moved to Western frameworks. These findings suggest that postcolonial attitudes towards indigenous peoples are still integrated in development programmes. This study however encourages further research of postcolonial attitudes towards indigenous peoples within international donors, and how international donors can improve in these aspects.

This descriptive essay aims to develop constructivist Role theory. Specifically, it examines the potential of applying role analysis to a case of two types of actors; marginalized citizens and their state decision makers. There has previously been little role analysis applied to domestic political settings, as opposed to internationally between states. Therefore, research has been encouraged in this area. The selected empirical case is the controversial Bakun hydroelectric dam project in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. It involves the resettlement of the marginalized indigenous Orang Ulu people and is driven by the Sarawak state government. By analyzing the role conceptions and norms of these actors, together with the concept of power, a new perspective on their relationship is developed. The successful application of Role theory in this new setting and case is a contributing point of the study. The role analysis is conducted using a qualitative critical text analysis method; an analytical framework is established with which the actors’ roles are retrieved from the text material. The results are then analyzed, and the conclusion of the case study is that the actors have incoherent conceptions of their roles and norms, leading to a conflict between the two in which the government has the upper hand due to (illegitimate) power structures.

Previous research on social movements shows that as a consequence of social stratification, structurally privileged groups in society are more prone to engage in and take on leading positions in collective action than those who are structurally marginalised. This essay takes off in the puzzle of deficient inclusion in social movements that identify as inclusive, and looks at how that problem also appear empirically in the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion (XR). As attention to environmental issues and climate activism has increased significantly over the last years, many activists and scholars have pointed out the importance of tackling the problem with an intersectional feminist approach. Therefore, an interpretive discourse analysis with a “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” (WPR) approach is applied to the strategically chosen case of XR, and the results are interpreted through an intersectional feminist lens as conceptualised by Angela Davis (1981, 2016). The analysis contributes to the research problem through identifying two parallel problem representations, one representing the problem as proximate, local and technical-environmental and one representing it as current, global and societal-environmental. It is concluded that part of XR’s discourse rests on a problem representation that risks reproducing structural power relations. According to Davis’s conceptualisation of intersectional feminism this could have dire consequences for a movement which has shown to have potential to influence politics.