This dissertation closely looks at the role of social media during the uprisings in the Arab world in 2011 that broke out in a number of Arab countries. In the thesis, an example of the Egyptian protests is used. An analysis of the usage of social media during the protests serves as a clear illustration how new media platforms subjugate traditional forms of media. This dissertation focuses on describing the power of the Internet and discovers the other aspects which played a significant role during the revolution. The dissertation uses an established social movement theories, communication theories and ideas of community, to place its use within a wider context and to explain the inherent characteristics of social media that made it appealing to the activists in Egypt. Finally, also to be pointed out, is the connection between the power of the social media and social power, when for the first time in history, the Internet facilitated the virtual relationship between people with very different profiles, but with a common objective. Key words: social media, community, online community, communication, uprising, cyberactivism, social movement theory, Egypt.

This research is focused on a group of vegan and vegan-curious individuals who are creating, building and maintaining a vegan community of practice in Houston, Texas. Through ethnographic methods, including participant observation, in-depth semi-structured interviews, surveys, quantitative analysis, and use of geographic information systems (GIS), this thesis considers motivations, group hierarchies, core and peripheral membership, practices, beliefs and construction of identity within the vegan community of practice. Further, concepts from the anthropology of religion are utilized in discourse analysis around conversion to ethical veganism, preaching, and religious-ethical beliefs around enlightenment and the principle of ahimsa. Utilizing subcultural studies and social movement theory, this thesis also shows how the vegan community of practice fits into vegan subcultures and the greater vegan lifestyle movement. Finally, as an applied project, deliverables to the client Vegan Society of PEACE includes both personal and structural barriers to veganism which are understood with respect to a race-conscious approach to veganism, and with special consideration given to the capitalist commodification of animals. Suggestions are given and strategies for growth of the community are highlighted at the end of this paper.

According to conventional wisdom winning hearts and minds is one of the most important goals for defeating terrorism. However, despite repeated claims about U.S. efforts to build popular support as part of the war on terror during the first seven years after 9/11, a steady stream of polls and surveys delivered troubling news. Using a counterinsurgency and social movement informed approach, I explain why the United States performed poorly in the race for Muslim hearts and minds, with a specific focus on problems inherent in the social construction of terrorism, the use of an enemy-centric model while overestimating agency, and the counterproductive effect of policy choices on framing processes. Popular support plays wide-ranging roles in counterterrorism, including: influencing recruitment, fundraising, operational support, and the flow of intelligence; providing credibility and legitimacy; and, sanctifying or marginalizing violence. Recognizing this the U.S. emphasized public diplomacy, foreign aid, positive military-civilian interactions, democracy promotion, and other efforts targeting populations in the Muslim world. To explain the problems these efforts had, this thesis argues that how Americans think and talk about terrorism, reflected especially in the rhetoric and strategic narrative of the Bush administration, evolved after 9/11 to reinforce normative and enemy-centric biases undermining both understanding of the underlying conflicts and resulting efforts. U.S. policy advocates further misjudged American agency, especially in terms of overemphasizing U.S. centrality, failing to recognize the importance of real grievances, and overestimating American ability to implement its own policies or control the policies of local governments. Finally, the failure to acknowledge the role of U.S. policies counterproductively impacted contested framing processes influencing the evolution of mobilization. The resulting rhetoric and actions reinforced existing anti- American views, contributed to the perception that the war on terror is really a war on Islam, and undermined natural counter narratives.

Existing scholarship suggests terrorism is an ineffective method of political contestation; groups rarely achieve their political objectives and are often disrupted by the security services. These findings invite us to look again at the dominant rational choice paradigm, which suggests that terrorism is selected as the best strategy to achieve predetermined goals. Unpicking the assumptions underpinning this model using historical case studies, comparative analysis and typology development, this thesis broadens our interpretation of what those who use terrorism seek to achieve. It does so via a tripartite framework. First, employing a new reading of American pragmatist thought, interpreting militant group goals as culturally and socially mediated problems opens up a new vista of outcomes, in particular examining the way terrorism seeks to change relations between people. Second, using Social Movement Theory as its organising framework, an empirically derived typology of militant groups sets out the background political conditions and organisational characteristics of 28 dormant groups. Using existing models of interpreting outcomes to assess these historical cases demonstrates the unmet challenges of providing robust explanations for why terrorism ends and what it achieves. Third, the thesis explores the promise of a mechanism and process-led approach to explaining outcomes. It does so through in-depth examination of two historical case studies: Kach and the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army. Despite being classified as failures, using largely neglected primary sources, the case studies reveal a range of fascinating and important outcomes that still resonate in Israel and Yemen today. Most of these methodological and conceptual tools are being applied to the question of terrorism's outcomes for only the first or second time. In doing so, this thesis offers greater depth than existing scholarship on how terrorism ends, by looking beyond measures such as success and failure in interpreting outcomes, whilst affording greater breadth through its ability to make comparative assessments at the level of mechanisms and processes. The result is a more detailed and robust set of explanations as to how terrorism ends and what it achieves, illustrated through detailed historical case studies of two interesting, yet often neglected, groups.

Youth organizations in Sweden try to be a reliable part in the political agenda, to change and improve how the politics affect youths. This study aims to clarify how four different youth organizations work with their political questions: from hbtq-perspective and children’s rights to the right to hearing-aid and involvement in questions regarding youths. The method used for the study was both a comparative study of how the organizations work to improve and change the Swedish political agenda for the better, and interviews with the chairpersons of the four youth organizations for a bigger transparency in their methods. The results of this study are that there aren’t any strategy or method to affect and change how the political agenda works. Even though each of the four organizations are successful within their own area of expertise, it’s not always possible to apply the same methods on another organization with another structure.

With the ultimate goal of illustrating the ways that queer youth employ change and act as agents of self-representation, this project examines the relationship between the It Gets Better Project, a queer adult project focused upon ‘bettering‘ the lives of their younger generation, and the Make it Better Project created in response by queer youth. This thesis addresses the following questions: How do adult conceptualizations of queer youth as vulnerable victims operate within discourses that employ queer youth as agents of change? In what ways do queer youth grapple with such conceptualizations? Furthermore, how might queer youth actively resist adult narratives of risk, vulnerability, and surveillance? Seeking to not only examine the ways in which queer youth negotiate adult narratives of adolescent risk and vulnerability, this project is organized to highlight the ways in which queer youth understand and experience their own representational and performative narratives, particularly when performed in response to adult narratives. In examination of the “It Gets Better: Dan and Terry” (2010a) and “It Gets Better: President Barack Obama” (2010c) vlogs of the It Gets Better Project, this thesis seeks to uncover the ways that assimilationist goals of inclusion, tolerance, and equality impact the intelligibility of queer youth. As a means for which to explore the possible resistance employed to counter such silencing mechanisms, the examination turns to three youth-produced vlogs of the Make it Better Project. An additional intent of the focus on the “LGBTQ Youth Speak Out”, “Make it Better Project” and “Make it Better Project - You Can Make it Better Now!” vlogs is to construct a space to analyze the complex and fluid dynamics of queer youth communities. With focus given to the various mechanisms employed by the adult and youth performers of these particular vlog-narratives, this project constructs an interdisciplinary framework of new social movement theory, new online media studies, queer theory, quare (queer of color) studies, feminist sociolinguistics, and critical youth studies as a means to position queer youth voices at the forefront of discussion. With the goal of continuing research that represents queer youth as agents of their own experiences, bodies, lives, and identities, it is my hope that the framework provided by this examination will inspire future work that highlights and centers the voices of queer youth. / text

This thesis addresses indigenous groups agency in trade governance to enhance their ability to affect international decision-making that benefits their capability to sustainable development. It conducts a case study of Articulation of Indigenous People Brazil (APIB) in the EU-Mercosur Agreement and utilizes Eimers (2020) theory of subaltern social movement theory to establish: what strategies the APIB have used in the decision-making processes of the “Mercosur Agreement?  This theory allows consideration of indigenous agency and the effect of post-colonial structures on their capability to keep control over their realties. To collect data on this topic the author uses qualitative semi-structured interviews and qualitative thematic text analysis. The thesis finds that framing strategies of claims enabled alliance-building in Brazil and Transnational Advocacy Coalitions, which used international norms to enhance indigenous interests. However, has post-colonial structures hindered APIB´s ability to enhance interest in Brazil and silenced indigenous interests in governmental representation in the making of the EU-Mercosur.

Syftet med denna studie var att öka kunskapen om motiv som leder till att medborgare organiserar sig mot vapenvåld och för en tryggare ort, efter att en ung man i området skjutits till döds på öppen gata. Vidare var syftet att få en förståelse för hur de mobiliserande processerna tar sig uttryck i Skarpnäck. Studiens frågeställningar har besvarats genom kvalitativa intervjuer med sju medborgare som deltar i mobiliseringen, samt ostrukturerade observationer av mobiliseringens skeende. Studiens data har analyserats med teorin om sociala rörelser, samt Bourdieus kapitalformer i kombination med begreppen fält och habitus. Resultaten visar på att motiven till deltagandet grundar sig i en kombination av faktorer, som exempelvis sociala relationer, platsidentitet och gemenskap. Vidare framkommer det av resultatet att området präglas av bland annat boendesegregation och resursbrister i den kommunala skolan, som på olika sätt bidrar med en distans mellan medborgarna och aktörer inom den offentliga sektorn. Mobiliseringen i Skarpnäck utgörs av ett kritiskt och kollektivt handlade som fokuserar på att kartlägga behov i området, vilket sedermera framförts till Stadsdelsnämnden i form av ett medborgarförslag. / The aim of this paper is to increase knowledge on the motives that lead to citizens organizing against gun violence and for a safer neighborhood, after a young man in the community was shot to death on an open street. Furthermore, the aim of this paper is to gain an understanding of how the process of mobilisation took place in Skarpnäck. The study’s questions have been answered through two research methods; qualitative interviews with seven citizens who took part in the mobilization, as well as by unstructured observations of mobilising events. Theories applied whilst analysing the collected data were social movement theoryand Bourdieu’s theory of capital as well as the terms field and habitus. Results show that citizen participation is motivated by several factors, such as social ties,  place identity and  community. Results also show that the neighborhood, amongst other things, is affected by segregation and lack of resources in the local public school, which in different ways  contribute to a distance between citizens and civil servants in the public sector. Mobilisation in Skarpnäck takes form through critical and collective action that focuses on mapping needs in the neighborhood, which are then presented to the districts committee as citizen proposals.

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