Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Filosofía. / Los tres proyectos que se exponen a continuación, acompañados por el análisis de la situación política consecuente, tienen como idea central la recuperación de los ideales democráticos que han quedado opacados ante la fuerte predominancia de algunos aspectos del liberalismo. En el caso de Macpherson, esto sería básicamente el individualismo, fomentado por el modelo político social imperante y que, a su vez, propicia el solapado encubrimiento de el aún subsistente conflicto de clases. Para Norberto Bobbio, en cambio, los principales obstáculos que la democracia hoy debe superar para prosperar y no dejar atrás los logros conseguidos por el liberalismo son lo que él llama “las falsas promesas”. Finalmente, Chantal Mouffe, que coincide con Macpherson respecto a las erosiones que el individualismo ha provocado en los valores democráticos hoy, elabora un análisis en el que se integran más elementos sociales, pues el acento está en el carácter pluralista de la sociedad contemporánea.

The goal of my dissertation is to further our understanding of the political ramifications of women's running stories by focusing on the intersections of feminist rhetoric, women in sports studies, political theory, and ontology. To this end, I examined six books written by women, about women, who participate in the sport of running. Since I am most interested in how gendered concepts teach us how to be "appropriate," and due to the fact that what is considered appropriate gendered behavior changes over time, I start from a place of understanding that "appropriateness" is necessarily both hegemonic and unstable. As a feminist rhetorical critic, I am foremost concerned with gendered relations of power, and am interested in working to move those relations towards the democratic end of liberty and equality. This dissertation examined the following five research questions: First, how do women articulate their running identities in the stories they tell? For example, do women depict running as central or influential to their self-concepts, roles, identities, ambitions and/or goals? If so, how? Specifically, what identities, concepts, or themes are common across stories? Second, do individual women explicitly discuss, or implicitly allude to, multiple identities or roles? If they embrace multiple identities or roles, how do they rhetorically navigate among them in the stories they tell? Third, how, if at all, do women articulate their experience of gender norms? Fourth, what are the points of possible contention, clash or disagreement in the discussion of women runners' experiences? How might the various perspectives that women (and others around them) express be in legitimate (agonistic, pluralistic) conversation with each other? And finally, in what ways might these stories hint at ontological change as a real possibility, and/or provide a canvas for an agonistic and plural relationship with the self and others? In other words, what commitments, goals, beliefs, and/or values do different perspectives have in common, that might bring them together to work for mutually-agreed upon change in the world, or in the political order? Upon completion of this dissertation, my feminist rhetorical analysis provided ample evidence that the texts I examined are clearly consciousness-raising documents, as their sole purpose is sharing stories of how women journey through life via running. This project illustrated that a particular kind of consciousness is raised when women's bodies are running, sometimes alone, but often together. This consciousness provides a freedom for these women to be more whole, strong, and authentic versions of themselves; running gives way to a mental and physical strength that these women may not have found otherwise. While for some rhetors and audiences, the essential question of women and girls' participation in sports looms large, for many other people, the issues have broadened and deepened from the original `to play or not to play,' and now encompass subtler concerns, from the wearing of the hijab in athletic competition to whether or not women should train during pregnancy. The female body is constantly on display and up for debate, and the female body in the realm of sports is no exception. Together, feminist rhetorical criticism and agonistic pluralism provided me with the foundation to creatively analyze women's running stories for their political and feminist ramifications, places where women are celebrated and heralded as strong athletes, as well as point out places where liberty and equality are still lacking.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Filosofía.

The aim of this study is to go into depth and analyze the concept of criminality (kriminalitet)and how it is constituted in Swedish parliamentary debates. During the election campaigns leading up to the 2022 election, a big part of the campaigns dealt with the growing criminality, which shows an increased interest in the issue. In April 2022, the "Easter riots"(påskkravallerna) took place, where a number of people for example threw stones at the police and other emergency vehicles personell. The study aims to investigate what the use ofthe term criminal in the parliamentary debates studied means, and what attributes are put to the term, based on statements made from politicians from three political parties in Sweden -Socialdemokraterna, Sverigedemokraterna and Moderaterna. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate whether the discourse in the parliamentary debates has undergone any changeafter the Easter riots, and if so, what type of change has taken place. The study also aims to find out whether a securitization of criminality has taken place. The first main contribution of this study is that discourses around the term mean that a large part of crime is due to immigration and segregation. The result shows no major change in the discourse after the Easter riots. The second main contribution of this study is that criminality has not become a security issue, but a speech act has been initiated by Sverigedemokraterna and Moderaterna

I studien undersöks hur hållbarhetsdiskursen konstrueras i Malmö stads översiktsplaner 1980 - 2014 med särskilt fokus på social hållbarhet. Hållbarhet är ett öppet och flytande begrepp men det används som om det hade en bestämd betydelse. På denna paradox fokuserar studien inledningsvis och därefter undersöks och jämförs den övergripande målsättningen i översiktsplanerna i en diskursiv analys med sikte på att komma fram till vad som förändrats över tid. Resultatet av analysen visar på förändring och dynamik i hur hållbarhetsdiskursen har formats och fått betydelse över tid.

The present study explores how representations of an underclass in Sweden is being constructed and negotiated by a diversity of so-called spokesmen of an existing underclass in Sweden within the Swedish hiphop genre. In their song lyrics, they state to speak up for an underclass in Sweden. They are, a strategically selected Swedish hiphop collective, Kartellen, whose song lyrics constitutes the study’s empirical material. Through a qualitative approach, inspired by the discourse theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe the analysis critically investigates and elucidates how the representation is being carried out and through their use of language. The empirical material has firstly been deconstructed and after that, analyzed within a discourse theoretical framework, consisting of postmarxist and poststructuralist influences. More specifically it aims to focus on statements regarding and constructing the prior group and representation of an underclass by exposing how it has been articulated and further represented. The study shows that there is a tendency to describe an underclass based on a leftist discourse consisting of a series of political manifestations. There are in addition, competing articulations concerning terms of alienation and nation present in the song lyrics. Moreover, descriptions of an underclass as a homogeneous group are given from their exclusive position of the social community, which neglects differentiations. This creates an ambiguous representation, reflecting on the arbitrariness of the use of language and therefore, exposes the risk of the representations’ fictive nature.

The purpose of the study is to examine how the image of the TV series Skam was constructed in the Swedish press during the winter of 2016-2017, with a focus on how Skam’s importance for individuals and society was expressed in the texts. To analyze how the discourse of Skam was constructed in the Swedish press, a discourse theoretical perspective based on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory was used, along with various theories of the media, the audience's production of meaning and pleasure, realism and psychology of religion. Different discursive tools from Laclau and Mouffe’s conceptual world are put into practice during the analysis part. Metaphors are also used as a method to understand and analyze the material.  In the analysis of the media discourse of Skam, four main themes emerged in the analyzed texts; Realism, identification, moralism and Norway and the Norwegian language. The discourse of realism raised the question whether Skam is realistic or not, and whether it is possible to understand teenagers by watching the series. The discourse of identification included questions like; whether participants could identify with the characters and situations in Skam or not, often from a nostalgic point of view. The discourse of moralism focused much on the different characters in the series and how they acted, or were portrayed. Topics such as feminism and homosexuality were discussed, along with other things. The discourse of Norway and the Norwegian language was a lot about the Swedish relations with Norway and the Norwegian language spoken in Skam. The discourse was very homogenous and notably it concerned the phenomena that Swedes have begun to speak Norwegian, and Swedish people creates a closeness and understanding of Norway and the Norwegians through the tv-series.  Skam was also constructed as something sacred that brings people together, in discussions as well as in cultural identity. A great majority of the texts discussed however adults should watch the tv-series or not.

The Tea Party’s influence in the recent 2010 elections suggests that the group is making an impact within American politics. This project seeks to identify the cultural forces at work and ground them within Antonio Gramsci’s framework of hegemony. Taking a cue from Michael Bérubé’s recent book The Left at War, I perform a close analysis of the Tea Party’s project for hegemony. I focus on the media discourses of the Tea Party movement, performing a close reading of two key Tea Party websites and unpacking two important televised moments relating to the Tea Party’s rise as a grassroots movement. I argue that the Tea Party uses the practice of articulation to persuade the American public that Tea Party members are the rightful heirs to the project of “America” that the Founding Fathers began centuries ago by using the theories of Bérubé, Stuart Hall, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as reference points. Finally, I use my analysis of the Tea Party’s articulatory practices to begin exploring a way forward for the American Left, building on the groundbreaking cultural work of Bérubé, Hall, and Laclau and Mouffe. / text

Denna studie syftar till att studera hur jämställdhet fylls med innehåll i regeringens nationella strategi för regional hållbar tillväxt och attraktionskraft perioden 2015–2020 och handlingsplaner från tre valda regioner som alla ingår i projektet ”regional jämställd tillväxt”, samt vilka effekter det får för möjligheten att politisera kön. Detta görs utifrån Carol Bacchis metodologi för policyanalys som heter ”What’s is the problem represented to be?” Även den tidigare Alliansregeringen har drivit liknande projekt, men studien avgränsas till den nuvarande regeringens strategi. Utifrån Bacchis sex steg för policyanalys, som bygger på filosofen Michel Foucaults teori om styrning och makt som kallas för ”governmentality”, konstrueras tre forskningsfrågor som alla har en angränsande följdfråga: Hur representeras problemet av regeringen och regionerna och på vilka premisser dessa representationer bygger på? Hur legitimeras problemrepresentationerna och vad som lämnas oproblematiserat? Vilka effekter kan problemrepresentationerna innebära för jämställdhetsdiskursen, individernas liv och hur de ser på sig själv och andra, samt hur problemrepresentationen produceras, sprids, försvaras och hur den kan ersättas? För att kunna reflektera kring detta sista steg tillförs ytterligare teori i form av Chantal Mouffes och Ernesto Laclaus ”diskursteori”. Studien visar på att problemet är brist på kunskap bland de regionala aktörerna och kvinnors bristande kapacitet att verka på marknaden. Jämställdhet problematiseras inte utifrån ett rättviseperspektiv, utan ses som ett medel för ökad regional tillväxt. En problemrepresentation som legitimeras av en problematisk demografisk utveckling och globaliseringen. För att ta till vara på all tillväxtpotential framställs människor som kreativa, vars entreprenörskap ska främjas. En problemrepresentation som sprids genom stora internationella institutioner och framställs som moraliskt rätt. Problemrepresentationen kan ersättas genom att konstruera ett politiskt klimat där motståndares åsikter ses som legitima och därmed möjliggöra politisering av kön och även fler sätt för människor att identifiera sig på. / The purpose of this thesis is to study how gender equality is filled with meaning in the governments national strategy for a regional sustainable economic growth and attractiveness during 2015-2020 and in the strategies from three selected regions, that are all included in the project “regional economic growth with a gender equality perspective”, as well as it has on the ability to politicize gender. This is done with help of Carol Bacchis methodology for analyzing policy called ”What’s the problem represented to be?”. The former government Alliance for Sweden have been working with a similar project, but this thesis is delimited to the strategy of the current government. With starting point in Bacchis six steps for analyzing policy, based on the philosopher Michel Foucaults theory about governing and power called “governmentality”, there are three research questions constructed, and each one is associated with a follow up question: What is the problem represented to be by the government and by the regions and on what premises are they build upon? How has this problem representation been legitimized and what is not problematized? What effects can this problem representation generate for the gender equality discourse, the way the subjects think about themselves and others, their lives and how are this problem representation being produced, disseminated and defended and how can it be replaced? Too be able to reflect on this last step, Chantal Mouffes and Ernesto Laclaus “discourse theory” is applied. This thesis shows that the problem is represented as a lack of knowledge about gender equality among the regional actors, and women’s capacity to act on the market. Gender equality is not being problematized as a matter of justice, rather as a mean for an increased regional growth. The problem representation is legitimized by referring to a problematic demographic development and globalization. To take advantage of the potentials for economic growth, humans are being portrayed as creative, and their entrepreneurship needs to be promoted. This representation of the problem is spread through major international institutions and is being portrayed as morally correct. This problem representation can be replaced by create a political climate where other opponents opinions are seen as legitimate, which makes it possible to politicize gender and also for humans to identify in more ways.

Title: How masculine is Donald Trump? – A comparative discourse analysis of how Donald Trumps masculinities are portrayed on The New York Times, The Guardian & Aftonbladets webpages The aim of this essay is to compare how Donald Trumps masculinities are portrayed in the news reporting by The New York Times, The Guardian and Aftonbladets webpages. The time period of the study capture Donald Trump before he was elected as president, after the election and then as the position as incumbent president to grasp one more dimension of his masculine identity throw different time periods and capture his subject position in the news reporting. The method that is used to examine this issue is Laclau and Mouffes discourse theory that work as a combination of discourse analysis as a method of analyzing the news text and locate different discourses. As well as in combination with theories about masculinities and previous studies about former presidents, macho culture and hegemonic masculinities. The result show Donald Trump with different masculine identities through both time and media channel. Donald Trump has first been seen as a masculine joke, a stunt like one of the Jackass-gang would pull in the TV-series. A man that is not afraid to take the challenge and run for president even if the odds are well against him, he represent a masculine crisis. Later on he take the form of a business man that hopefully will ”not” run USA like his worldwide affairs, fast and unpredictable. The latest chapter portray Donald Trump as a fearless president that do whatever he want in policy making and the media is afraid of what will happen to the world order. From a former identity of a ”business rockstar” that does what he wants with females and worldwide affairs to become one of the most fearsome manly leader of the western civilication. Alongside with the theory of masculinities Donald Trump try to defend the hegemonic masculinity of politics and business leders by playing on a possible ”mancard” like Ronald Reagan back in the 80 ́s, by reaching out to the industry workers that mostly are men and defending there chances of labour – when the society evolved form industrial to a more service economic society with women competing alongside men about workplace. The slogan ”America First” would rather be ”Masculinity First”, ”Make America Masculine Again” would be the text on the caps