Post-conflict reconstruction refers to the complex process whereby societies strive to overcome internal armed conflict and (re-)establish peaceful and stable political arrangements. The central question addressed in this thesis is whether Uganda's transformation under Y. Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM) between 1986 and 2000 is a successful case of post-conflict reconstruction, as is widely held. As a corollary, it asks how the interaction between the NRM and the international community has affected this process. The thesis argues that, in spite of the NRM's remarkable achievements, Uganda's reconstruction is deeply flawed. Most importantly, a legitimate framework for the allocation, exercise and reproduction of political power has not been established. The reconstruction strategy, shaped by the NRM's character as a politicised guerrilla group and dominated by the imperative of regime survival, was inherently twin-faced. It restored political authority and security to most areas of the country, enabling, amongst other achievements, economic recovery. However, it also unleashed military interventionism, led to political closure, and created a fragile and politicised economic order. As such, the NRM's actions attracted increasing opposition, expressed through political and military means. The ancillary argument is that, notwithstanding the pre-eminence of domestic factors, Uganda's transformation has been highly dependent on the support of an interested international community. The NRM was willing and able to adapt to donors' priority concerns, in particular to introduce liberal economic reform, and strategically used donor support to build its power. For their part, donors found the NRM's authority and commitment to structural adjustment quite irresistible. Agendas thus converged, generating mutual dependence. As a result, donors overlooked how their support was diverted, and how the NRM's security policies and political reforms diverged from stated principles. The donors' approach promoted the consolidation of the NRM's power, yet at the expense of the legitimacy of Uganda's reconstruction.

Le foncier, entendu comme des relations entre les humains à propos de la terre, est au cœur de la répartition des pouvoirs, particulièrement dans les sociétés à dominantes agraires. Encadrer sa gestion à travers la formulation d'une politique publique signifie altérer les rapports entre l'État et les pouvoirs locaux, et la manière dont l’État entend construire un pouvoir de contrôle sur les hommes et le territoire. À travers l'exemple de l'Ouganda sous le régime du National Resistance Movement (NRM), cette thèse en science politique analyse la manière dont une politique publique foncière se fabrique en interaction avec les structures de pouvoir. Nous touchons ici aux rapports entre polity, politics et policy. Appréhendée comme une activité politique, la fabrication d’une politique publique foncière en contextes africains n’est pas qu’une affaire d’État. Elle est une source de légitimité politique pour les acteurs intégrés au processus. Son instrumentalisation peut profiter à un changement de rapports de force. Ce processus commence à partir de la fabrication des énoncés de problème et aboutit à la négociation d'une solution. Cette recherche inductive se fonde sur des méthodes de recherche qualitative : observations participantes, entretiens semi-structurés, recours à la littérature grise et aux archives. Elle est le fruit d'un travail de terrain de quatre ans en Ouganda. Cette thèse innove d'un point de vue théorique en intégrant l'approche discursive et pragmatique de l'action publique à l'approche structurationniste. Elle lie cette approche à la notion « d'historicité de l’État importé ». Ce cadre théorique permet d'étudier les mouvements d'ordre et de désordre de la société qu'engendre la formulation des énoncés de problème et de solution. Elle fournit aussi un apport empirique détaillé à l'étude de la politique foncière en Ouganda. Cette thèse contribue ainsi à l'étude de la démocratisation en Afrique, de celle du foncier en Afrique, et de celle des politiques publiques en contextes africains. / Land tenure, defined as the set of relations among humans that determine their interaction with land, lies at the heart of power struggles, especially in agrarian societies. Governing land management through public policy means changing power relations between the state and the local institutions that exercise social control. Using Uganda under the regime of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) as its case study, this thesis in political science explores the manner a public policy concerning land is constructed through the interactions among various power structures. We are dealing here with the interactions among polity, politics and policy. Examined as a political activity, the construction of a public policy concerning land in African contexts goes beyond a matter of concern for the state alone. This activity is a source of political legitimacy for those actors participating in the process. Its instrumentalisation can lead to changes in power relations. This process starts with the construction of the problem and ends with the negotiation of a solution. This inductive research is based on qualitative research methods : participant observation, semi-structured interviews, analysis of grey literature and of archives. It is based on four years of field work in Uganda. This thesis innovates theoretically as it integrates the discursive and pragmatic approach of public policy to structuration theory. It ties this approach to the notion of « historicity of the imported state ». This theoretical framework allows us to study the ordering and disordering of society that are triggered by the formulation of problems and solutions. It provides a detailed empirical study of public policy concerning land in Uganda. This thesis contributes, more generally, to the study of democratisation in Africa, land tenure in Africa and public policy in African contexts.

The present thesis offers a new perspective on Holocaust memory in Greece by examining the ways in which divergent mnemonic representations about the Greek 1940s, as evidenced in polarized public contestation, influence the position of Holocaust in contemporary Greek collective memory. Adopting a micro-level case-study approach, the thesis focuses on the process of renaming a street in Salonika (or Thessaloniki), by examining public discourses around the issue. On the basis of theoretical elaborations in the area of collective memory, and through an application of Kubik and Bernhard's conceptualization of the politics of memory, a qualitative evaluation of Holocaust memory in Salonika is presented by attempting to categorize the memory regime emerging. It is assessed that the memory regime pertaining to the Holocaust is affected by the salience of pre-established memory regimes, occupies a secondary status in the wider mnemonic field and, what is more, is not unified. In such context, a problematic tendency to actually distort the historical record of the Holocaust, in the form of downplaying the complicity of local elites in the implementation of the Nazi genocidal policy, is also detected and explained as a repercussion of the specific dynamics at play whenever political actors engage in discussions about the Greek 1940s. All things considered, the study demonstrates that the official institutionalization of Holocaust memory on a commemorative level, a phenomenon observed during the past twenty years, should not be equated to the emergence of a cosmopolitan Holocaust memory in the country.

On July 29 2000, Uganda held a referendum to decide whether to continue with the ruling Noparty Movement system or to revert to the Multi-party platform. This research entails a qualitative content analysis of the role the media played in driving debate and understanding of the referendum and its role in the country’s democratisation process. The research is informed by Jurgen Habermas’s public sphere paradigm as well as the sociological theory of news production. The research covers Uganda’s two English dailies – The New Vision and The Monitor, examining whether they provided a public sphere accessible to all citizens and devoid of ideological hegemony. It concludes that the newspapers were incapable of providing such a sphere because of the structural nature of Ugandan society and the papers’ own capitalistic backgrounds and ownership interests. The research concludes that such English language newspapers published in a country with a low literacy rate and low income levels, can only provide a public sphere to elite and privileged sections of society. A case is then made that multiple public spheres would be better suited to represent the views of diverse interest groups.

The primary focus of this Master's thesis is the role of Internet and above all various social networks in activating Czech extremist far right movements. The thesis analyses the way modern means of communication streamline the spreading of socially marginal ways of thinking and the way these technologies help bypassing the media blockage often imposed on the activities of these movements, as well as the repressive police force, the power of which is circumscribed within the partially anonymous realm of Internet. A part of this work is also dedicated to an ideology based categorisation of the various branches of right wing extremists. This division is then supported by specific quotes published by these groups on the Internet. The groups that are given the most prominence include the Workers' Party of Social Justice, the Workers' youth, the National Resistance and the Autonomous nationalists.

Dans un essai qui aurait tout aussi bien pu s'intituler « L'islam chiite entre la politique et la religion, le cas du Liban », une analyse de l'islam politique demeure nécessaire pour mettre la lumière sur la différence entre islamisme et religion musulmane. Avec un peu moins de deux milliards de musulmans dans le monde, la religion musulmane est devenue la première religion pratiquée dans le monde actuel. Le dynamique de cette religion a permis la création d'un immense empire aux populations hétérogènes. Ainsi que, la coexistence entre religion et régime politique a provoquée de véritables luttes armées entre les grandes familles politico-religieuses, notamment le sunnisme et le chiisme. Le sunnisme ayant souvent l'étiquette d'orthodoxie a gardé cette aspect alors que le chiisme devint autres chose ce qu'il était à l'origine, lorsqu'on y voyait seulement le parti qui s'était rassemblé autour d'Ali ibn Abî Tâlib, cousin et gendre du prophète Mohammad. Dans ses quelques traitements de la doctrine islamique nous constatons que ces familles politico-religieuses, tant sunnites que chiites, proliférèrent les unes à côté des autres en même temps qu'elles se combattirent et souvent se condamnèrent réciproquement. Ceci est dû au fait qu'en l'islam, il n'y a jamais eu de pouvoir interprétatif qualifié, individuel ou collégial capable de s'imposer sans conteste.L'effondrement de l'Empire Ottoman donna l'occasion à la France et la Grande-Bretagne de partager le monde arabe sur la base des fameux accords Sykes-picot. La France va restructurer les territoires syrien et libanais, elle établit la structure constitutionnelle confessionnelle complexe du Liban, faisant du pays de Cèdre le plus grand laboratoire du communautarisme. Dans le Liban d'après-guerre, le communautarisme va de soi, il reflète l'état de la société et celle de la conciliation entre spécificités confessionnelle et principe fondamental de l'Etat nation. Le communautarisme libanais va évoluer à travers des mutations économiques, sociales et politiques, notamment chez la communauté chiite. Nous présenterons l'évolution de la communauté chiite dans cet environnement, ainsi que le rôle fondamental joué par Moussa el-Sadr dans la libération de la communauté chiite. Son objectif étant une réaction à la conscience politique du «Metwali». Sa première action était la lutte contre les inégalités sociales et devait s'engager avec l'Etat libanais dans une série d'affrontements qui couvraient souvent un aspect spectaculaire: grève générale en 1970, avertissement au gouvernement et à la réunion de 1974 à Baalbeck que Moussa-El -Sadr a annoncé la naissance du mouvement AMAL. Ce mouvement joue un rôle essentiel dans la vie politique libanaise. Enfin, nous consacrons une partie de ce travail à l'émergence d'une milice radicale pro-iranienne chiite, le Hezbollah, qui a pénétré le système politique libanais. Sa place est privilégiée à cause de ses succès dans la résistance contre Israël, de ses actions sociales et humaines et de ses organisations. La timide participation du « parti de Dieu » au parlement libanais constituait un premier pas vers la « libanisation » du parti. En 2012, le parti chiite annonce sa participation aux combats en Syrie à côté de l'armée de Bachar el-Assad, freinant ainsi le processus de libanisation. Le Hezbollah devient un des acteurs incontournables de la géopolitique du Moyen Orient et retourne en force sur la scène politique libanaise pour s'inscrire dans le cadre d'un chiisme politique international. / In an essay that might as well have been entitled "Shia Islam between politics and religion, the case of Lebanon", an analysis of political Islam remains necessary to shed light on the difference between Islamism and religion Muslim. With just under two billion Muslims in the world, the Muslim religion has become the first religion practiced in the world today.The dynamics of this religion allowed the creation of an immense empire with heterogeneous populations. As well as, the coexistence between religion and political regime provoked real armed struggles between the big politico-religious families, notably Sunnism and Shiism.Sunnism often had the label of orthodoxy, but Shiism became something else that it was originally when one saw only the party that had gathered around Ali ibn Abi. Tâlib, cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Mohammad. In his few treatments of Islamic doctrine we find that these politico-religious families, both Sunni and Shiite, proliferated alongside each other at the same time that they fought each other and often condemned each other. This is due to the fact that in Islam there has never been a qualified, individual or collegiate interpretative power capable of imposing itself unquestionably.The collapse of the Ottoman Empire gave France and Britain the opportunity to share the Arab world on the basis of the famous Sykes-picot agreements. France will restructure the Syrian and Lebanese territories, it establishes the complex confessional constitutional structure of Lebanon, making the country of Cedar the largest laboratory of communitarianism. In post-war Lebanon, communitarianism is self-evident, reflecting the state of society and the reconciliation of confessional specificities with the fundamental principle of the nation-state. Lebanese communitarianism will evolve through economic, social and political changes, especially among the Shia community.We will present the evolution of the Shiite community in this environment, as well as the fundamental role played by Moussa el-Sadr in the liberation of the Shia community. His goal is a reaction to the political conscience of "Metwali". Its first action was the fight against social inequalities and was to engage with the Lebanese State in a series of clashes that often covered a spectacular aspect: general strike in 1970, warning to the government and to the 1974 meeting in Baalbeck that Moussa-El -Sadr announced the birth of the AMAL movement. This movement plays a vital role in Lebanese politics. Finally, we devote part of this work to the emergence of a radical pro-Iranian Shiite militia, Hezbollah, which has penetrated the Lebanese political system. His place is privileged because of his successes in the resistance against Israel, his social and human actions and his organizations. The timid participation of the "party of God" in the Lebanese parliament was a first step towards the "libanization" of the party. In 2012, the Shiite party announced its participation in the fighting in Syria next to the army of Bashar al-Assad, thus curbing the process of Lebanization. Hezbollah becomes one of the key players in the geopolitics of the Middle East and returns in force on the Lebanese political scene to be part of an international political Shiism.