Studien syftar till att undersöka ekologismen i den sociala rörelsen We Are What We Do, som försöker förverkliga samhälleliga förändringar genom kollektiva små handlingar. Genom en kvalitativ fallstudie analyserar författaren rörelsens strategier som ska inspirera och motivera människor att agera, hur den utnyttjar märke och marknadsföring för att mobilisera kollektiva handlingar och bygga en gemenskap, och rörelsens visioner i det subpolitiska sammanhaget. Studien har slutsatsen att We Are What We Do är ett uttryck av den reflexiva ekologismen, eftersom den utvecklar politik utanför den traditionella politiska arenan, samt syftar till att engagera nya aktörer och omfamnar självorganiserande och avcentraliserade utvecklingar. / This study aims to examine the environmentalism of We Are What We Do, a social change movement which aspires to making social impacts through aggregated individual actions. Through a qualitative single case study, the author analyses the movement’s strategies at inspiring and motivating people to take small actions, how it uses branding to mobilise collective actions and build a community, and the movement’s visions in the context of subpolitics. The study concludes that the We Are What Do embodies a reflexive form of environmentalism, as it chooses to deploy politics outside the conventional political arena, aims to engage new political agents and embraces self-organising and decentralised developments.

This thesis attempts to problematize the power relations in environmental administration and decision making through the analytical lens of environmental discourse and ethics. It argues that developments in environmental politics reveal a marked increase in democratic involvement through an emerging ecological civil society as reflected in the case study of the proposed King William Reservoir in Virginia. An ecological civil society could become the leaders and educators in communities to develop the expertise needed for responsible democratic participation in environmental decision making at the local level. As reflected in the case study, however, official political marginalization and exclusion of the public are continued features of federal and state environmental processes and structures. These processes and structures should be re-formed to include new democratic elements which would increase local control and responsibility for environmental transformations, and reduce conflicts overall. / Master of Science

Les thèses de l'autonomie de la technique et l'identification du progrès au progrès technique ont exclu la notion de démocratie du champ de la réflexion de la philosophie politique sur les sciences et les techniques, au profit de conceptions technocratiques. Ce sont alors l'histoire et la sociologie des techniques qui ont essentiellement abordé les relations entre technique et démocratie. En examinant leurs travaux, nous montrons à la fois l'importance des facteurs socio-culturels pour expliquer le développement technique d'une société et l'existence d'une forme faible de déterminisme par lequel les techniques structurent les relations sociales. La possibilité et la pertinence qu'il y a à faire de la technique un objet du débat démocratique apparaît alors à double titre : d'une part, elle engage chaque société sur le chemin d'un mode de développement que les citoyens doivent pouvoir discuter et, d'autre part, elle est déjà un objet de politique puisqu'elle est concernée par des législations et constitue, sous la forme de l'innovation, un élément majeur des projets politiques nationaux et internationaux. Nous montrons que, confrontée à différentes critiques, la démocratie technique doit être complexifiée afin de ne pas s'en tenir à une réflexion sur l'expertise et la compétence et de pouvoir répondre aux enjeux des conditions juridiques, économiques et épistémiques de la production des savoirs et des innovations comme aux enjeux classiques de la démocratie en général dont elle constitue un approfondissement vers un nouveau champ, celui de la définition du progrès. / The topic of democracy has been excluded from thinking about sciences and technologies in political philosophy by the idea of an autonomous technology and the identification of technical progress to progress itself. Instead, technocratic conceptions of power have been examined. Consequently, it is in history and sociology of technology that we can find considerations on relationship beteween technology and democracy. By analysing how they conceive this relation, we show both the importance of socio-cultural factors to explain technical development of society and existence of a weak version of determinism which implies that technologies shape social relationships. Then, we can understand that there is two reasons which explain why making technology an object of democratic debate is possible and relevant: first, technology commit society on a development path that citizens should be entitled to discuss; second, it is already a political object for it is adressed by legislations and, as innovation, is a key element of national and international political objectives. We point out technical democracy, given the critics it receveid, has to become more complex in order no to be limited to thinking about expertise and skill and to be able to adress what is at stake in the economic, juridic and epistemic conditions of knowledge and innovation production as well as what is at stake in the classic thinking about democracy. For technical democracy is a way to enlarge democracy to new topics, particularly to the question of how to define progress.

<p>The purpose of the study is to examine eight individuals’ experiences and conceptions of political consumerism. Main notions in the study are concepts like reshaping of the politics, morality and individualization. The method of choice is qualitative interview and grounded theory. Theories that deal with consumer society, subpolitics and individualization constitute the theoretical framework. These theories lead to obtaining a deeper understanding of what was said in the interviews. Opportunities to improve living and working conditions for producers in the South, is the main reason for the use of political consumption.</p>

The purpose of the study is to examine eight individuals’ experiences and conceptions of political consumerism. Main notions in the study are concepts like reshaping of the politics, morality and individualization. The method of choice is qualitative interview and grounded theory. Theories that deal with consumer society, subpolitics and individualization constitute the theoretical framework. These theories lead to obtaining a deeper understanding of what was said in the interviews. Opportunities to improve living and working conditions for producers in the South, is the main reason for the use of political consumption.

The work deals with the phenomenon of so called watchdog organizations. The increasing number and influence of these organizations indicates a creation of new social movement. The authoress defines them as a type of public benefit nongovernmental organizations focused on the controlling of the public sphere or advocating and asserting a "public interest" in relation to the democratization of society. The authoress target is to understand this type of action, so she asks herself the question: Which frameworks are used by watchdog activists for the interpretation of their acting? At first there is briefly presented the concept of watchdog in the context of wider reflections of contemporary society, mainly in the context of reflexive modernity, monitory and participatory democracy and information society. Secondly there is introduced Goffman's framework analysis and the related conceptualization of framework of social movements by Benford and Snow. The authoress highlights a definition of frames as the principles of selection, emphasis and presentation about what happens, and what matters. In the next part of this work, there are presented the methodology and results of the qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with watchdog activists. The research is settled in the area of...