No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Note:

Why after almost a decade of silence and "successful" crackdowns of contention during the 1980s has Iran witnessed once again waves of increasing popular protest? What are the processes and mechanisms behind the routinization of collective actions in Iran since the early 1990s, which continue despite state repression? Why and under what circumstances does a strong authoritarian state that has previously marginalized its contenders tolerate some forms of contention despite the state's continued repressive capacity? And finally, to what extent are available social movement theories capable of explaining the Iranian case? In "State, Dissidents, and Contention: Iran, 1979-2010" I engage theories of social movements and contentious politics in order to examine the emergence, development, and likely outcomes of popular contention in contemporary Iran. My study is the first project of its kind to focus on elite factionalism and its impact on popular mobilization in contemporary Iran. Although other scholars have extensively written on elite factionalism in postrevolutionary Iran, they have not analyzed the implications of the inter-elite conflict for the emergence and development of social protests against the Islamic Republic. While this study primarily utilizes political process and resource mobilization models, it acknowledges the importance of economic, ideological, and breakdown approaches for the interpretation of the emergence and development of popular mobilization in contemporary Iran. Drawing on data gathered from census figures, public policies, state and oppositional newspapers, and interviews with dissidents and state officials, this study shows that collective actions against the Islamic Republic emerged gradually due to institutional changes, limited electorate competition, social and educational expansion, and, more importantly, the intellectual transformation of a significant segment of the elites and their action-intended discourse. I demonstrate that the political opportunity structure is not a unitary national opportunity but rather varies by social groups, demands, and contexts. I make this argument by exploring the political environment for collective mobilization in contemporary Iran in four key contexts: 1. the period of consolidation, war, and repression (1979-1988, the Khomeini era); 2. the period of postwar reconstruction and economic liberalization (1989-1997, the tenure of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani); 3. the era of reform and political opening (1997-2005, the tenure of President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami); and 4. the period of mobilization in the context of increasingly violent repression (2005-present, the tenure of President Mahmood Ahmadinejad). By examining social protests within these different contexts, I conclude that regimes that use force to restrict political rights after a long and sustained period of opening risk eliciting resistance from dissidents who have already gained organizational resources to challenge the state's violent closing.

No description available.

This thesis examines how constituency candidates are furthering independence from the national party through new media campaigning, by comparing data from general elections in two countries with different styles of campaigning – party-centred campaigning in the United Kingdom (2015) and candidate-centred campaigning Japan (2014). Data collection and analysis has been conducted in a two-stage process. Firstly, candidates' website and social media use (Twitter and Facebook) during election campaigns was examined, establishing the degree to which candidates are using new media to pursue the personal vote, and what form this takes. Findings from candidate new media use were also used to formulate the second stage of research – interviews with candidates and members of parliament in both the UK and Japan. A secondary research question has also examines whether personal vote seeking behaviour has a positive impact on candidates' electoral performance, or whether party performance factors are a key factor of performance at the constituency level. This study confirms that that Japanese candidates use new media to run more candidate centred campaigns, replicating traditional campaign styles, but also finds that other factors, namely candidates' levels of experience and the strength of the national party, play a role in how candidates utilise new media. This is broadly confirmed through findings from candidate interviews which also provide a greater understanding of different campaign behaviour not just between Japanese and UK candidates, but also those representing political parties of varying strength.

This thesis explores the political and cultural impact of community-level conservative activists during the early Cold War red scare in America. It provides a comprehensive overview of the hitherto overlooked aspect of the so-called McCarthy-era - amateur counter-subversives who contributed to the national mood of anticommunism in obscure but meaningful ways. It also establishes significant philosophical and practical connections between disparate groups - some nakedly right-wing, others more vaguely 'patriotic' - that demonstrate the existence of a loose but genuine grassroots anticommunist network. In the broader historical sense, by contextualising the achievements of the embryonic conservative movement, this thesis builds upon the challenges the body of literature that posits the 1960s as the essential decade in the emergence of the modern, socially conservative Republican right. In the last years of the 1940s, factions within the political and legal establishment used red scare rhetoric and new loyalty regulations to visit brief but potent misery upon their liberal and leftist enemies. At the same time, less well-connected Americans signed up for the ideological struggle. Some were members of influential civic organizations - such as the American Legion - whose long-held enmity towards left-wing politics found fresh urgency in the Cold War age; Others joined newly formed pressure groups with the expressed aim of defending their towns and suburbs from Soviet-inspired subversion. Veterans groups, school board campaigns, religious bodies, and women's patriotic societies: all provided forums for local-level attacks on perceived un-Americanism. This thesis utilizes the literature, letters and ephemera of such organizations, as well as local newspaper reports, legal and political investigations, and the personal recollections of activists, to document and analyze the most significant actions carried out in the name of community anticommunism. It examines how grassroots campaigners worked to reshape what it meant to be American, and finds ways in which their efforts - scorned as absurdly reactionary by contemporary observers - pointed towards a shifting American political landscape.

Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen, 1927. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 6-8).