This study seeks to analyze and understand the Russian propaganda before and after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 15th of October 2021 to the 28th of February 2022 is the chosen research period, mainly because of the importance to get an understanding of how Kremlin used its propaganda machine to first justify the invasion and then legitimizing it after 24th of February. The study aims to shed light on how the propaganda can be understood from the perspective of the theories classical realism and authoritarian propaganda. Also, from a more general perspective to recognize what truly pervades the Russian propaganda during the period. The result reveals that the propaganda is strongly shaped by realistic beliefs regarding Russia’s national security in relation to the supposed threat coming from Kyiv and the West. It also shows that the propaganda is heavily restricted to the Russian authorities, seeing that it aims to create a reality where the western hegemony is in the wrong, while the Russian society is an idealistic alternative. Therefor the propaganda creates an image that Russia did not have any other choice than to invade Ukraine, to save it from Nazism and the presumed disastrous western civilization.

Until the 1980s, the People’s Republic of China was principally opposed to United Nations peacekeeping, understanding the institution to be a thinly veiled excuse for powerful states to intervene in the sovereign affairs of others. However, the meaning the country attributes to peacekeeping has changed drastically since then. China has adopted a more pragmatic attitude and has gradually become more supportive and involved in United Nations peacekeeping. Today the country stands as a major contributor to peacekeeping, not least in terms of the number of peacekeepers it contributes to missions. However, how does China make sense of its current behaviour? This paper seeks to understand how the participation of Chinese military personnel and police in peacekeeping operations is made coherent with Chinese self-identity. The paper employs a narrative analysis that focuses on how narratives draw on master narratives about Chinese collective memory to construct participation in peacekeeping as a natural conclusion to already accepted notions about what it means to be Chinese. On the one hand, this paper confirms the findings of previous scholarship on Chinese identity and the country’s attitude on peacekeeping. Like these, this paper finds that China’s self-identity as a part of the Global South and as a great power plays a role in how China conceptualizes peacekeeping. However, on the other hand, the paper also finds dissonance in how the narrative relates peacekeeping to China’s identity as a part of the Global South. Additionally, this paper also demonstrates that the narrative draws on several master narratives that have not previously been identified as important to how China makes meaning of peacekeeping. Specifically, these are the collective memories of ‘Asian values’, China’s experiences from the Second World War, and the revolutionary history of the CPC.

The following dissertation studies the idea and mythologization of the "Hebrew Sea" in the writings and political activity of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky (1880-1940), the leader of the Zionist Revisionist movement, developed the concept of the "Hebrew Sea" as an ideal that was used in various fields of his Zionist activity. Within inter-Zionist politics it was utilized as a means of competing with the dominant ideological faction, labor Zionism, over contribution to the national revival and Zionist youth, and its greatest achievement was the establishment of the Civitavecchia Naval Academy in Italy. On the international-diplomatic level the "Hebrew Sea" was used in order to advance closer political relations between Revisionism and Italy - an endeavor Jabotinsky was interested in from an early stage of his Zionist career. The "Hebrew Sea" also played an important role in the development of Jabotinsky's unique ideal of national identity, which sought to depict the Jewish people as a Mediterranean, and not a desert or Middle Eastern people. This vision drew from contemporary theories about Hebrew identity, which associated the Hebrews with the Phoenician empire and not necessarily with Jewish monotheism. Finally, economically this ideal supported the socioeconomic vision of Revisionism,...

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[pt] Esta tese estuda a representação do Brasil e da identidade nacional nas telenovelas das 20h da TV Globo (programa de maior audiência da época na televisão brasileira) no período entre o final da ditadura militar e a volta da democracia por voto direto, que aconteceu em 1989, tendo o debate sobre as eleições para presidente da República e a Constituinte de 1988 como panos de fundo. Discute-se aqui a telenovela com base na formação da identidade brasileira e ainda a sua relevância durante a consolidação da televisão no Brasil, assim como as suas mudanças ao longo do tempo, pois elas interferem na forma como o espectador pensa e assiste a este produto. A telenovela Vale Tudo foi escolhida como recorte não apenas por ter sido exibida em uma época importante da vida social e política do país, mas por ser considerada um clássico: ela discute a ética e as questões pungentes na estrutura brasileira, tais como o jeitinho brasileiro, o patrimonialismo, o crime do colarinho branco, dentre outras questões que fazem parte da história nacional. Com três reprises em pouco mais de trinta anos, ela vai ao ar pela primeira vez no ano da constituinte e termina no início do ano em que o brasileiro elege o seu primeiro presidente pós-ditadura militar. Além disso, ela foi – juntamente com outras novelas do mesmo período histórico – uma das últimas a passar pelo departamento de censura do governo. No intuito de responder à hipótese levantada por esta tese de que a novela Vale Tudo é um clássico, foram utilizados dois recursos. Primeiro, uma decupagem geral da obra: análise dos personagens, resumo da trama, diálogos importantes, trilha sonora e principais temas tratados. Segundo, as reprises, em especial a de 2018 em comemoração aos trinta anos da trama. As críticas positivas e a adesão do público nas redes sociais comprovam que, mesmo com questões tecnológicas e de forma narrativa um tanto diferentes das atuais, a novela seguiu tendo relevância para o brasileiro. A partir de todas essas narrativas, ao final deste trabalho, comprova-se a importância desse produto de ficção ao retratar o Brasil e os dois lados que permeiam o imaginário nacional (o do brasileiro honesto e o daquele que não compreende os preceitos da ética), pensando-se igualmente o papel e a importância das telenovelas na construção da nacionalidade a partir da década de 1960. / [en] This doctoral thesis studies the representation of Brazil and the Brazilian identity in telenovelas broadcasted daily by TV Globo at 8 p.m. (the program with the highest audience rates at the time in Brazilian television) during the period that ranges from the end of military dictatorship to the return of democracy by direct vote (1964–89), having the debates on the election for president of the Republic and the 1988 Constituent Assembly as the background. This text analyses the formation of the Brazilian sense of identity through the study of telenovelas, and its relevance throughout the consolidation of television in Brazil. Changes the telenovelas underwent over time are also studied, as they interfere with how the viewer thinks and watches this product. The soap opera Vale Tudo was chosen as a study case not only because it was broadcasted during an important time in the country s social and political life, but also because it is considered to be a timeless classic: it discusses ethics and poignant issues in the Brazilian structure, such as the Brazilian jeitinho, patrimonialism, white collar crime, among other issues that are part of national history. With three reruns in thirty years, it airs for the first time in the year of the Constituent Assembly and ends at the beginning of the year in which Brazilians have their first democratic election after the military dictatorship. In addition, Vale Tudo was—along with other contemporary telenovelas—one of the last soap operas to pass through the government s censorship department. In order to prove that Vale Tudo is a timeless classic, two resources were used. First, a general decoupage of the telenovela: character analysis, plot summary, important dialogues, soundtrack, and the main topics addressed. Second, the reruns, especially the 2018 rerun in celebration of the plot s 30th anniversary. The critic s and the public s acceptance of the telenovela on social media proves that, despite being technologically and narratively outdated, Vale Tudo continues to be relevant for the Brazilian public. With all these narratives, at the end of this doctoral thesis the importance of different soap operas in portraying Brazil and Brazilians is proven, as well as the role of telenovelas in the formation of the Brazilian sense of identity from the 1970s onward.

2030 marks the 100-year anniversary of The Stockholm Exhibition 1930 and what is often described as an important breakthrough of modernism in Sweden. The “special exhibition” Svea Rike - with the task of strengthening the national identity- has not been given the same attention as other exhibition halls in The Stockholm Exhibition in architectural history. Svea Rike was not part of the initial plans of The Stockholm Exhibition 1930 and is therefore missing in the early and most published plans and models of the exhibition. Exterior and interior photographs of the special exhibition disclose parts of Svea Rike but it’s never entirely uncovered.  In the Svea Rike pavilion at The Stockholm Exhibition 1930 the development of Sweden was shown in a full picture and near the entrance, Herman Lundborg, Head of the State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala presented his work on typical racial descriptions and the significance of heritage through photographs, sculptures, and illustration. To see the building Svea Rike is also to see how race and modernity are interconnected and central in the history. Through careful research into archives and collections, examining drawings, photographs, objects, correspondence and other texts, this project aims to find out what the building Svea Rike looked like. Through reading, investigating, approximating, drawing, and model, information is overlapped and a reconstruction of Svea Rike offers a way to see the Stockholm Exhibition from the building Svea Rike.

In the field of Cinema studies recent and updated studies on Swedish 1930s cinema has been absent. The aim of this thesis is to provide new insights into the period by examining the films starring actor Edvard Persson released between 1930 and 1939. In total the study analyses 17 feature films with Persson in a leading or minor role in how they portray modernity and modernisation. The focus of the research lies on certain aspects of modernity such as machines, borders, class differences, national identity, and the role of women. The goal is to shed new light on Persson’s films in the 1930s and give updated research on a period of Swedish film history that is in need of newer scholarly work.

In the pre-globalized era, when many nations were comparatively ethnically homogenous, sentiments about national identity and national membership were less contentious. Today, an increasingly open and inter-connected world is changing the demographic composition of countries across the globe. This growing diversity has unavoidably fueled debates about who really counts as belonging to the national community, and what qualifications need to, or should, be met to become a member of it. Does your cultural or ethnic heritage need to come from the historic ethnic majority, or is ethnicity irrelevant? Is it about adhering to a certain value base? If it is about values, what are they? This essay set out to answer these questions in the context of local expressions of nationalism in Sweden. Correlations of these expressions with ethnic nationalism were virtually non-existent. Multicultural nationalism enjoyed a bit more support, however not to any substantial degree. The ideal type of nationalism with the by far strongest presence in the data was civic nationalism, with clear references in the material to a national identity based on ethnic blindness, equality, and the rights and obligations that come with citizenship.

[pt] Essa dissertação busca apreender a identidade brasileira construída discursivamente e projetada durante o governo de Jair Bolsonaro (2018-2022). No contexto em que a família se tornou o guia e a âncora do comportamento do Brasil na arena internacional, partimos da literatura feminista nas Relações Internacionais, retomando as relações entre Estado-nação e gênero, para utilizar seu arcabouço teórico combinado à literatura emergente sobre as ofensivas antigênero contemporâneas e explorar a ascensão transnacional de governos da extrema direita e a transposição da ideologia de gênero para a gramática estatal. A partir da agenda pós-estruturalista de política externa, argumenta que a política externa bolsonarista, ao mesmo tempo em que se valeu da construção discursiva da identidade nacional brasileira para justificar seus atos, também a constituiu neste processo, sendo a família elemento chave desse processo. Para isso, analisa o discurso de política externa de determinados atores governamentais brasileiros no período de 2019 a 2022 objetivando verificar como a construção de identidade brasileira se relaciona com a política externa que se segue e qual identidade brasileira é construída nessa articulação. Esse esforço de pesquisa permite fazer sentido tanto das especificidades do cenário brasileiro que levaram à presidência um governo ultraconservador e autoritário que ativamente trabalhou para pautar importantes questões sobre gênero e sexualidade, quanto refletir sobre as dinâmicas genderizadas, sexualizadas e familiarizadas de construção do Estado-nação brasileiro que influenciam o entendimento sobre o quem é o Brasil. / [en] This dissertation seeks to apprehend the Brazilian identity discursively constructed and projected during the government of Jair Bolsonaro (2018-2022). In the context in which the family became the guide and anchor of Brazil s behavior in the international arena, we depart from the feminist literature in International Relations, recapturing the relations between the nation-state and gender, to use its theoretical framework combined with the emerging literature on the contemporary anti-gender mobilizations to explore the transnational rise of far-right governments and the transposition of gender ideology into state grammar. This thesis argues that Bolsonaro s foreign policy, while making use of the discursive construction of the Brazilian national identity to justify its actions, also constituted it in this process, with the family being a key element in this process, following the post-structuralist foreign policy literature. In order to do this, it analyzes the foreign policy discourse of certain Brazilian government actors in the period from 2019 to 2022, aiming to verify how the construction of the Brazilian identity is related to the foreign policy that follows and which Brazilian identity is constructed in this articulation. This research effort allows us to make sense of both the specificities of the Brazilian scenario that led to the presidency of an ultraconservative and authoritarian government that actively worked to address important questions about gender and sexuality, as well as to reflect on the gendered, sexualized and familiarized dynamics of construction of the Brazilian nation-state that influence the understanding of who Brazil is.

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