The American public’s wellbeing rests on the ability of policymakers to enact informed policy. In order for policymakers to be productive in the forging of policy, they must be presented with unbiased intelligence analysis. Thus policymakers must maintain a healthy relationship with the intelligence community in order to receive accurate intelligence reports. Avoiding politicization is paramount to maintaining a healthy intelligence-policymaker relationship. Throughout the past half-century, American politicians and members of the U.S. intelligence community have sought to minimize their own political opinions when dealing with matters of national security. This thesis explores and describes the relationship between intelligence and policymaking, and examines closely how politicization of national security matters strains that relationship. It will focus on two case studies; the first concerning the Kennedy administration and the second the Trump administration. I address hostile intra-administration relations within the Kennedy administration and relate those complications to the current tensions between Trump and his intelligence services. It is concluded that for executives, the use of confidants to conduct foreign policy negotiations and to deliberate on national security matters generates resentment and distrust from intelligence agencies. Associating with the Russian government is also a major factor leading to rifts in this relationship. For the intelligence community, biased analysis, leaks, and undermining policy positions all contribute to decreases in policymaker’s confidence in their work. These forms of politicization hamper healthy intelligence-policymaker relations and lead to ineffective policy initiatives. President Trump must work with his intelligence community to curb these forms of politicization if he is to have a successful and productive presidency.

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Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a comprehensive challenge to dominant conceptions in Security Studies. Security has been approached as a political phenomenon, resulting from political assumptions and having political effects. The politicization of security has been pursued by a number of so-called ‘critical approaches,’ including ‘security as emancipation.’ The latter argues that security consists in removing or alleviating constraints upon the lives of individuals and groups – such as poverty, ill health, or lack of education. This thesis asks two questions: firstly, can the ‘security as emancipation’ approach, in its current formulation, deliver on its claims and promises, in the context of the effort of politicization in Security Studies? And secondly, if it is shown that there are weaknesses, in what ways can the analytical and normative outlook of security as emancipation be strengthened through an engagement with other resources in the literature? Chapters 1 and 2 establish the context in which the merits of security as emancipation must be judged. They conclude that an engagement with this approach must focus on the way it conceives the multiple connections between security and politics. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 pursue this insight, by focusing on the notions of reality, threat and power respectively. In each of these themes, the argument identifies gaps in security as emancipation and suggests theoretical reconsiderations based on an engagement with approaches and ideas – in the critical security literature and in social and political theory – that so far have been neglected or not examined sufficiently by this approach. This thesis aims to re-establish security as emancipation as a valid interlocutor within critical debates about security. It also aims to show that the dialogue between critical approaches is, not only possible, but beneficial to understanding the politicization of security.

This study represents a contextualized analysis of the perimortem trauma and postmortem treatment of an assemblage (n=9) of naturally mummified individuals recovered from the Hets Mountain Cave in southern Mongolia. The assemblage dates AD 1434-1651, a period characterized by political instability and widespread conflict. Analysis of the trauma was completed utilizing radiological evaluation of 3D CT data. The perimortem trauma and postmortem treatment are contextualized within documentary and archaeological data on contemporary Mongolian mortuary and cultural practices to understand the social identities of these individuals. The trauma patterns are consistent with execution methods reserved for higher status Mongolians; the mortuary treatment is suggestive of a hybrid of Shamanistic and Lamaistic mortuary practices reserved for higher status Mongolians. These findings speak to the utility of case-study based analyses in complementing more top-down historical studies for understanding the effects of political instability and widespread conflict upon individuals during poorly documented time periods.

For decades, rhetoric has been utilized by both politicians and those in the scientific community to convey either support for or denial of the existence of climate change. This study combined two forms of rhetoric in the forms of both framing and politicization to determine which form of rhetoric is most powerful in influencing a person’s attitudes and behavioral intentions. Pro climate change frames are expected to increase support for climate change action, while anti climate change politicization is expected to decrease support for climate change action. The results of this study show that select frames have the intended effect of influence on increasing support for climate change measures. Surprisingly, the results also show that politicization that questions the science of climate change has the power to both increase and decrease support for attitudinal measures with regard to climate change.

The purpose with this essay is to investigate Swedish political parties who have had or has a restrictive immigration policy containing opinions, that can be classified as xenophobic, and their history and development as a party. The focus in this essay is centred on the politicization that the parties Ny demokrati and Sverigedemokraterna have gone through and the mobilization they have reached. The material that will be handled in this matter are mainly the parties’ political programs that have been published in various forms, but these will be supplemented with secondary sources in the form of previous research, reviews by journalists and other literature. The result have shown that the development from 1970 – 1980´s to today considering these type of organizations is that they have changed in their appearance, in the matter of how they convey their message, and the actual appearance of the party members more than the message itself. The strongest evidence in this matter is Sverigedemokraterna which since the election 2010 has gained entrance in the Swedish parliament as a xenophobic party.

This diploma thesis focuses on the analysis of the "phenomenon" of politicization of etnicity in Kenya, its impacts on temporary situation and future development of the country. Through the analysis of the sources and development of the phenomenon it makes an effort to explain the motives of the post-election violence in 2007 and review the temporary constitutional reform process focused on its impacts on political ethnization and minimalization of the social conflict. However for a long time, Kenya used to be perceived as a politically stable and prosperous African country, where many European tourists spent their holidays, the post-election violence in 2007 harshly damaged the positive international reputation of the country. Fortunately, an agreement between the two main presidential candidates was promptly reached and finally in August 2010 Kenyans peacefully passed the constitutional reform. There are doubts, whether they manage to reconcile the latent grievances of the past and settle ethnic conflicts of the Kenyan society to become a model to other multiethnical countries in Africa.

Politicization has an ambivalent reputation among public administration scholars. While considered an effective instrument to safeguard political control over ministerial bureaucracy, partisanship of senior civil servants is likewise associated with patronage and deemed detrimental to professionalism and meritocracy. To scrutinize this contradiction, the article examines how a party¿political background of senior civil servants influences their decision-making behavior. Two theoretically derived conceptions of loyalty are put therefore to the test: responsiveness and responsibility. Effects are captured by using vignette technique in 40 in-depth interviews with former senior civil servants from ministerial departments at federal and state level in Germany. The results are surprising insofar as they reveal that politicized senior civil servants neither act more responsive nor less responsible than their non-politicized peers. These findings challenge common assumptions and call for a more refined analysis of the conditions under which politicization leads to negative effects.

Thesis advisor: Lisa Dodson / Service learning has emerged as one of the most popular mechanisms to promote and teach students about civic, moral, and political responsibility in American colleges and universities. This dissertation offers a critical exploration of the potential and limitations that engagement in service activities, and service learning in particular, can offer. The research was designed to explore how individual long-term volunteers attach meaning to their service experience, as well as how these meanings are constructed. In other words, what is the process by which students come to make sense of the volunteer work in which they are engaged? Of particular interest are the potential connections between these constructed meanings and a sense of politics or a sense of social change strategies. To explore the ways in which volunteers attach meaning to their service experience, I conducted participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and focus groups with a number of college students currently participating in a structured long-term service learning program; along with staff members of this program and of community partner organizations; and a group of comparison volunteers. This research provides an overview of the relationships, roles, responsibilities, benefits, challenges, and overall structure and design of a long-term service learning program. Participation in a structured service learning program shapes the ways in which students think about their service as it relates to a sense of politics and social change. However, the connection between service and political engagement is often complicated by a lack of political opportunities, a perceived lack of civic skills or political knowledge, and views of politics as divisive and ineffective. This dissertation also contributes to a greater understanding of the ways in which collective identity can develop among student service learners, and how this collective identity may impact their work. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Durant plusieurs décennies, au sein de ce qui s'est appelé la « banlieue rouge », Ivry-sur-Seine faisait figure de « bastion » modèle pour le Parti Communiste Français. Le communisme municipal ivryen avait fait de ses cités ouvrières des espaces laboratoires au service d'un creuset d'affiliation sociopolitique particulièrement efficace. Jusqu'au tournant des années 1980, aux cités Maurice Thorez et Youri Gagarine, les résultats électoraux enregistrés par les différents représentants communistes en ont attesté. Avec la remise en cause du modèle de politisation fondé sur l'écosystème industriel, le renouvellement des générations pose avec acuité la question des conditions de reproduction d'une affiliation sociopolitique favorable aux représentants communistes. Une approche ethnographique sur la longue durée a permis de renseigner cette question. Depuis le milieu des années 1980, la trajectoire sociopolitique contrastée des deux quartiers atteste des ruptures infra-communales touchant ce type de territoire de la banlieue parisienne. Dans le quartier Youri Gagarine, la majorité des anciennes familles ouvrières a été remplacée par les nouveaux milieux populaires essentiellement composés de populations issues de l'immigration. Entretenant une historicité tout à fait différente à l'égard de l'étiquette « communiste(s)», les nouvelles générations participent, parfois activement, d'une contestation de l'ancienne autorité politique locale. À l'inverse, dans le quartier Maurice Thorez, situé au cœur du centre-ville, les descendants des familles ivryennes les plus proches de l'appareil partisan et/ou municipal ont maintenu résidence. Dans ce quartier, autour d'une endocratie politique locale, se maintiennent des liens communautaires fonctionnant de manière relativement indépendante de l'ancien encadrement partisan. Pour de nombreuses familles ivryennes appartenant à la classe moyenne, le maintien d'une certaine autorité communiste facilite leur accompagnement social, politique et électoral des métamorphoses contemporaines du communisme municipal. / For decades, Ivry-sur-Seine was seen as a model Communist stronghold within the Paris ‘Red Belt'. The particular brand of communism practiced by Ivry's municipal government had turned its working-class housing estates into laboratories directed towards the production of a singularly efficient political affiliation system. Until the watershed of the 1980s, electoral results for the various communist representatives in the Maurice Thorez and Yuri Gagarin housing estates seemed to corroborate this. The decline of the politicization model born of industrialization as well as the generation gap have radically undermined the conditions in which a socio-political affiliation system favourable to communist representatives can survive, however. The choice of a long-term ethnographic approach can give us insight into this phenomenon. Since the middle of the 1980s, the contrasting socio-political evolution of the Thorez and Gagarin allotments has testified to the intra-municipal disruption that affects this type of suburban Parisian territory. In the Yuri Gagarin area, the majority of older working-class families have been replaced with a new working-class population essentially stemming from immigration. Often unaware of the rich history of communism in their municipality, these new generations are sometimes actively involved in the challenging of the older local political authority. Downtown, on the contrary, the descendants of the families that were closest to the local party machine have maintained residency in the Maurice Thorez area. Community links have survived around a local political “endocracy” that works relatively independently from the older partisan frame. For many middle-class families living in Ivry, the maintenance of a certain communist authority makes it easier to accept the social, political, and electoral transformations of contemporary municipal communism.