This study explores regionally based perspectives on the broader nation-wide phenomena of the politicisation of Hinduism (Hindutva) in historical and contemporary times (van der Veer 1987; Basu et al 1993; Pandey 1993; Jaffrelot 1996). However, in contrast to these works, my focus is on the extent to which an annual religious festival, the Ganapati utsava, has been effected by the wider socio-political terrain in the cities of Mumbai and Pune, Maharashtra. The Ganapati utsava is a discursive arena for mutually reliant activities of a devotional, artistic, entertaining, and socio-political nature. The intertwining of the various constituent elements sustain and accentuate each other in the performative milieux of the festival, yet also lie outside of totalising political schemas. I note that the festival has become a site for the hegemonic strategies of several political parties, and sponsored media competitions who all vie for supremacy in the festive context. As a result, the festival represents an uneven field of consent and contestation (Laclau and Mouflfe 1985). The history, and contemporary praxis of the festival necessitates a consideration of the movement of nationalism(s) for which the festival played a significant part, particularly under the auspices of Bal Gangadhar Tilak since the 1890s. I propose that the efficacy of nationalism as a hegemonic strategy relies as much on public performative events, as on constitutional politics and social structures (eg. Gellner 1983), or on the print media, such as newspapers and novels (eg. Anderson 1983). By integrating Habermas' views on the 'public sphere' (Habermas 1991) and perspectives on public rituals or 'public arenas' (Freitag 1989), the study notes the interactive potency of both collective gatherings and media forms as sites for variant nationalist strategies. Mandap (shrine) tableaux, in particular, are considered as performative loci for socio-political variables, particularly in their audio-taped narratives and visualisation of versions of the nation.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, EU enlargement has regained prominence on the EU agenda. I examine the politicisation of enlargement and arguments for and against enlargement in two debates in the European parliament conducted in November 2023. This is done with a postfunctionalist outlook, expecting that polarisation on the subject will shape along the identity axis. I find that the two debates lack polarisation and can thus not be seen as very politicized. In accordance with postfunctionalist integration theory, I do however note that most traditional and authoritarian parties oppose enlargement. Previous research shows that a member of the European parliament’s nationality also affects positions on enlargement, in combination with the cultural axis. When also taking this into consideration, the understanding of what shapes opinions on enlargement is refined.  The argumentation analysis of the debates shows that opinions that favor enlargement in the debates often stem from a geopolitical urge of positioning the EU against Russia. Opinions that argue against enlargement are mostly concerned about the own country’s payments to the EU budget. This finding leads to a suggestion that more research should be done on how the status as net contributor or net beneficiary to the EU budget shapes opinions on enlargement.

Dans la France de l'entre-deux-guerres, les catholiques ne cessent de revendiquer une prise en charge financière de leurs établissements scolaires, dont la situation matérielle s'avère singulièrement précaire. L'enseignement privé catholique subsiste grâce à ses enseignants, subsumant leurs conditions de travail au nom de leur foi. La doctrine affirmée de l'Église catholique en matière d'éducation et l'acceptation des rôles prescrits dans l'institution sont les clés essentielles du maintien du réseau éducatif catholique. Cette revendication s'accompagne d'un militantisme polymorphe. Aux tenants de la réalisation de l'unité catholique, qu'elle soit en opposition au régime politique ou s'inscrivant dans la légalité républicaine, s'adjoint une troisième posture, encore marginale, d'insertion du catholicisme dans la modernité. Rejet ou acception de l'école publique, définition et rôle de l'enseignement privé, signalent ce qui se joue au sein du champ ecclésial : l'acceptation ou non de la pluralisation de la société française et de l'opinion catholique. Dans les années 1920, domine la configuration d'un cléricalisme éducatif, utopie d'une société chrétienne dont l'école catholique serait le fer de lance. Les années 1930 sont l'objet d'une reconfiguration paradoxale : alors que l'épiscopat reprend l'initiative en créant un Comité national de l'enseignement libre en 1931, la décléricalisation de l'action catholique est confirmée. Ce faisant, le militantisme catholique, qui a permis le maintien des écoles, participe en même temps de la politisation de l'espace ecclésial et, in fine, de sa sécularisation. / In France, during the interwar period, Catholics ceaselessly claimed public financial support for their schools, which were in a particularly precarious situation. Private Catholic schools subsisted thanks to their teachers who subsumed their hard working conditions to their faith. The strong doctrine of the Catholic Church in educational matters and the acceptance of prescribed roles within the institution were key to maintain a Catholic education system. This claim went alongside a polymorphous activism. Three attitudes prevailed: first, there where the advocates of the realization of Catholic unity, whether in opposition to the political regime or enrolling in the republican legality; then appeared a new movement which demanded the insertion of Catholicism into the modern world. The rejection or the acceptance of the public school system and the definition of private education and of its role, highlighted the issue for the Church: the acceptance or rejection of the pluralisation of French society and of the Catholic opinion. In the 1920’s prevailed the clericalist educational utopia of a Christian society of which Catholic schools would be the spearhead. The 1930’s saw a paradoxical reconfiguration: in the same time that bishops took the initiative of creating a National Committee for private education in 1931, the declericalization of Catholic action was confirmed. In doing so, Catholic militancy which enabled the maintenance of schools, was also responsible for the politicization of the ecclesial scope and, ultimately, of its secularization.

The illegal targeting of healthcare in armed conflict is nothing new but its continuance and impunity at a time when the protection of it has formally never been higher, for instance through the UNSC Resolution 2286, motivated this study. Therefore, the thesis analyses how the illegal targeting of healthcare affect humanitarian actors operating in Yemen as well as the local population. How the population and humanitarian actors perceive and interpret the violent targeting of healthcare was explored as well.    This study is based on a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 11 media outlets and 25 documents provided by humanitarian actors. As a theoretical framework the humanitarian principles, international humanitarian law and the politicisation of humanitarian aid were addressed. Moreover, securitization theory was used in order to explain how humanitarian actors securitize the targeting through language. The results show that consequences of the illegal targeting for humanitarian organisations are limited access to the field as well as the closing of facilities and withdrawal of staff due to security issues. For the Yemeni population consequences are a limited access to healthcare as well as a loss of trust in the safety of medical facilities and therefore they often take the decision to not seek medical care. The analysis shows that humanitarian actors present the illegal targeting as a threat to the survival of beneficiaries and connect this to their own organisational survival and through that securitize the illegal targeting.

The negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) triggered an unprecedented level of protests in the European Union (EU) in several member states. However, it was unclear whether the contestation of TTIP led to the Europeanisation of the national public spheres (Risse, 2010), given the general national fragmentation of the political debate in Europe (Koopmans and Statham, 2010a). This thesis analyses the debate and politicisation of TTIP in the Spanish, French and British media, and aims to answer two research questions. First, how and to what extent were national media discourses about TTIP Europeanised? Second, how does this type of Europeanisation of public spheres contribute to the democratic legitimacy of the EU? In order to answer the two research questions, an interdisciplinary theoretical framework has been put forward. Departing from the literature on the European public sphere (Koopmans & Erbe, 2004; Fossum & Schlesinger, 2007; Eriksen, 2005; Trenz, 2009) and the importance of analysing the Europeanisation of public spheres at the national level (Risse, 2010), the thesis argues that the literature often overlooks the role of conflict in the understanding of the public sphere. The gap in the literature has been addressed through a hybrid conceptualisation of the public sphere, combining a typically Habermasian deliberative approach with Chantal Mouffe’s ‘agonistics’. Empirically, the thesis undertakes a framing analysis of two different data sets through both qualitative and quantitative methods. The first data set is composed of press releases of a diverse group of EU-level political actors, in order to see what is the preferred framing of TTIP by different actors. The second is composed of the written articles dedicated to the TTIP negotiations in nine national news outlets (three from each selected country) in France, Spain and the UK, from the public announcement of the negotiations (February 2013) until the negotiations were officially frozen (November 2016). The actors’ discourse has been developed as a frame-mapping exercise undertaken inductively, identifying how different actors made sense of TTIP and put forward a number of competing frames. The findings of the empirical analysis of actors’ press releases indicate the attempt to strategically politicise or depoliticise the discussions around the TTIP negotiations, framed through different values by the different actors. These frames have been situated in categories, depending on whether they depoliticise TTIP, they challenge it in an agonistic or antagonistic way, or they focus on the negotiations as a process. The framing analysis of the media content on TTIP in the Spanish, French and British public spheres has revealed two separate chronological periods in the TTIP debate based on the presence of frames, measured through a framing ratio. The first period represents the traditional ‘permissive consensus’, while the second illustrates the agonistic politicisation of TTIP. Each national public sphere developed its own dynamics, which shows the importance that the national context has when discussing TTIP and Europe (Diez Medrano, 2003). However, while the Spanish, French and British public spheres have slightly different chronologies in their transitions from the first to the second period, there is a transnational coherence in terms of the frames of reference across the three countries. The findings of the media content analysis, particularly during the second period of the TTIP debate in the three countries, support the argument that there has been a Europeanisation of national public spheres that has happened in combination with a value-based and agonistic (Mouffe, 2013) politicisation. Rather than opposing the EU as a polity, the agonistic politicisation that has taken place in the case of TTIP has legitimised the EU by opening a space for the contestation of the negotiations, while accepting the EU as a political arena. The thesis argues that this agonistic Europeanisation of the national public spheres can lead towards an ‘empowering dissensus’ for European integration. The combination of agonistic politicisation and Europeanisation of public spheres is a process that matches ‘policy with politics’ at the EU level and normalises the EU as a polity by channeling conflict as politics in the Union rather than politics of the Union. / Doctorat en Information et communication / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Public services play an essential role in society, and every citizen uses them. They have traditionally been the principal means of implementing the political will, through policy development and implementation. Yet it is almost a national sport to criticise public servants. Their image is often poor, fed by television programmes such as Yes Minister. Common perceptions include that they have little real merit, do not work hard, are under little pressure to perform, are too powerful, are almost impossible to dismiss, and could benefit from some private sector experience. Such are the consequences of the career service model of employment that public servants enjoy. This thesis considers the much-maligned career service model of public sector employment relations, and asks how important it was, how it evolved, and why. First, it outlines the traditional understanding of public service employment, with its central tenets of merit, tenure, standardised conditions and political neutrality, all administered by an independent central personnel agency, and then explores the adoption, adaptation and reform of that model in three major western democracies - Britain, the United States and Australia. Then, it considers the implementation and evolution of that model in the Queensland public service from 1859 to 2000. The thesis argues that the traditional career service model was necessary to overcome problems of politicisation, corruption, insecurity and inefficiency that arose from the previous patronage model in the early 1800s. The model contained sound principles that were largely consistent with Westminster conventions, and were considered necessary for effective service in a political environment. Poor implementation of the model led to growing dissatisfaction by the late 20th century. However, rather than diagnose the problem as poor implementation and perhaps inadequate political leadership of the service, the career service model itself was found deficient, and was subjected to extensive reform through the weakening of its central tenets. The evolution of the career service demonstrates some circularity, as the problems of politicisation and insecurity that existed prior to the career service model begin to re-emerge.

Der Aufsatz befasst sich mit der Frage, ob sich eine wachsende Politisierung der Ministerialbürokratie und eine zunehmende Bürokratisierung der Politik in einer Hybridisierung der Karriereverläufe von Spitzenbeamten und Exekutivpolitikern auf Bundes- und Landesebene in Deutschland nachweisen lässt. / Switches between political and administrative positions seem to be quite common in today’s politics, or at least not so unusual any longer. Nevertheless, up-to-date empirical studies on this issue are lacking. This paper investigates the presumption, that in recent years top bureaucrats have become more politicised, while at the same time more politicians stem from a bureaucratic background, by looking at the career paths of both. For this purpose, we present new empirical evidence on career patterns of top bureaucrats and executive politicians both at Federal and at Länder level. The data was collected from authorized biographies published at the websites of the Federal and Länder ministries for all Ministers, Parliamentary State Secretaries and Administrative State Secretaries who held office in June 2009.

Partant du constat de l’attention croissante et appuyée des organisations internationales aux thématiques « femmes, paix et sécurité », cette recherche vise à mieux comprendre les modalités concrètes des interventions sur cette thématique ainsi que leurs effets sur les dynamiques sociales et politiques de mobilisation des femmes en contexte d’entre-guerres. La thèse discute la perspective à la fois critique et experte des effets des programmes internationaux en proposant une sociologie des interventions déployées sur la thématique du « genre » au Burundi (1993-2014). En s’appuyant sur une enquête documentaire et de terrain menée au Burundi entre 2012 et 2014, elle contextualise dans une première partie la construction des interventions du point de vue des normes, des pratiques et des relations entre les acteurs. Elle étudie dans une deuxième partie la socialisation des acteurs individuels participant aux interventions aux savoirs diffusés par les programmes internationaux. Dans une troisième partie, elle analyse les processus de politisation dont certains enjeux, pratiques et sujets de l’action collective des femmes font l’objet. La thèse défend une interprétation dynamique du processus de politisation. De par leurs effets problématiques sur la socialisation des acteurs, les interventions déployées sur le genre participent à la politisation de l’action collective des femmes. Cette politisation place les organisations internationales face à une impasse car ces tendances échappent au cadre d’intervention qu’elles peuvent effectivement porter. Paradoxalement, cette impasse entretient plutôt qu’elle n’altère la politisation en cours. / International organisations (IOs) have displayed a growing interests in matters related to “women, peace and security”. This thesis permits to better understand the concrete realities of IOs’ interventions in this domain and their effects on the social and political dynamics of women’s mobilisations in interwar contexts. The thesis uses a sociological lens to approach gender-related interventions taking place in Burundi (1993-2015). In doing so, it goes beyond the critical and expert perspectives of the effects of international programmes. This work is based on a study of official documents and, more importantly, field research carried out in Burundi between 2012 and 2014. The first section of the thesis addresses the construction of gender-related interventions from a normative, practical and relational point of view. The second section studies the ways in which multiple individual intervening actors become socialised with international standards and practices on gender and women’s issues. Finally, the third section analyses the processes of politicisation of certain issues, practices and subjects of women’s collective action. The thesis defends a dynamic interpretation of processes of politicization and argues that, because of problematic effects on the socialisation of actors, interventions on gender contributes to politicise women’s collective action. This politicisation places IOs in a delicate position, as these tendencies are beyond the scope of their intervention. Paradoxically, this position maintains rather than alters the current politicisation.

The long-spun Brexit process has been named a symbol of an alleged disconnection between the European Union’s high-level decision-makers and its citizens. This thesis aims to contribute to the existing literature on the role of national parliaments in brining EU affairs closer to the citizens. More specifically, it turns attention to the Riksdag, and to how informative parliamentary debates on EU affairs are communicated to Swedish citizens. Earlier studies have provided valuable insights into how political opinions on EU affairs are presented in electoral manifestoes and behind closed doors in the Riksdag’s committees. By conducting a quantitative content analysis on Swedish news medias’ coverage of the Riksdag’s debate on EU-affairs over the last ten years, this study offers a first insight into how EU debates are conveyed to the wider Swedish audience. Drawing on previous research on national parliaments, the concept of opposition and theories from the field of political communication, three hypotheses are formulated. While the first hypothesis aims to test whether Swedish news media provide citizens a diverse set of positions from the Riksdag’s debate on EU affairs, the second hypothesis seeks to illuminate which parliamentary actors that are most prominent in medias’ reporting from the Riksdag. Finally, the third hypothesis turns attention to the mode in which EU affairs are presented in news media. None of the hypotheses are unambiguously supported by evidence. The implications are that the media to some extent filter the parliamentary debate. A filter that at occasions may exclude diverging positions on EU affairs. Further, though governments are presented as the main actor in the majority of all analysed articles, the Riksdag is close behind. The result implies that the Riksdag is indeed competing with the government in being the main agenda setter in Swedish news media. Nevertheless, it also suggests that oftentimes, the Riksdag is referred to as one unit, without news media distinguishing the diverging positions within the institution. Finally, the finding from the third hypothesis suggests that the Riksdag is somewhat restricted when it comes to shaping the discourse surrounding EU affairs. In spite of the Riksdag’s increased focus on policy-aspects of EU affairs, the mediated image of the very same debate may still be presented as a concern of polity or procedure. Ultimately, despite not providing any clear support for the hypotheses, the somewhat filtered mediated image of the Riksdag’s debate on EU affairs may carry implications for national parliaments’ ability to bring EU affairs closer to the citizens of the Union.

of dissertation Dagmar Magincová The dissertation entitled Permeation and implanting of political influence into the culture on the example of Czech publishing houses'activity in 1938-1949 deals with the context of historically based politicisation of culture. It examines mutual relations between literary works, artefacts and political, social and cultural regulations, ideas and institutions in the sphere of publishing activities in Bohemia 1938-1949. The first part reflects the issue of power instruments used to influence culture; the second part conducts a survey of publishing activities from the aspect of individual subjects' attitudes in the transforming context of the time; the third part analyses particular ways how politics penetrates through culture, and the reflection in public discourse. Methodology of the study is based on the interdisciplinary basis of critical theory, which also implies the crucial issue of power forms transparency.