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The Syrian Civil War has displaced millions of Syria’s inhabitants both around the region and throughout the world. These individuals carry different experiences, views, and perceptions regarding what they have left and their views on the conflict. This study seeks to identify the dominant frames used by 11 Syrian diaspora individuals living in Sweden when framing the Syrian Civil War. It also aims to identify individuals' views of the civil war. The study uses a qualitative framing analysis and applies Kuyper’s function of frames in a total of 11 semi- structured interviews. The study examines interviewees' frames regarding (a) The Arab Spring demonstrations, (b) The Syrian regime, and (c) International Interests. The study found the following frames on (a) horria (freedom), shohada al-thowra (martyrs of the revolution), extremist opposition, (b) dictatorial, dictatorship, fakher (pride), and (c) natural resources, the USA and Russia. The study argues that interviewees adopt different frames based on three factors, (I) media consumption, (II) sectarian affiliation, and (III) geographical origin. / Inbördeskriget i Syrien har fördrivit miljontals av Syriens invånare både runt om i regionen och över hela världen. Dessa individer har olika erfarenheter, åsikter och uppfattningar och syn på konflikten. Denna studie syftar till att identifiera dominerande gestaltningar som används av 11 syriska diaspora-individer som bor i Sverige vid gestaltning av det syriska inbördeskriget. Studien syftar också till att identifiera individers syn på inbördeskriget. I studien används en kvalitativ gestaltningsanalys och tillämpar Kuypers funktion av gestaltningar i totalt 11 semistrukturerade intervjuer. Studien granskar respondenternas gestaltningar angående (a) demonstrationerna under den Arabiska Våren (b) den Syriska regimen och (c) internationella intressen. Studien fann följande gestaltningar (a) horria (frihet), shohada al-thowra (revolutionens martyrer), extremistisk opposition, (b) diktatur, diktatur, fakher (stolthet) och (c) naturresurser, USA och Ryssland. Studien hävdar att intervjuade antar olika gestaltning baserat på tre faktorer, (I) mediekonsumtion, (II) sekteristisk tillhörighet och (III) geografiskt ursprung.

This dissertation provides a model for understanding the relation between shifting imperial and post-imperial geopolitics and cultural change in diverse local communities. Specifically, I offer a new perspective on the debate in ancient history regarding “Hellenization,” i.e., the adoption and adaptation of Greek cultural idioms by non-Greek communities. Despite recent advances in emphasizing local communities’ agency in the “Hellenization” process, scholars tend to maintain a rigid dichotomy of monolithic “Greek” vs. “local” culture, and do not offer a comprehensive model accounting for variations in changes, and continuity, by region or time. I propose such a model for the late- and post-Seleucid Levant, and offer significant insights into Hellenistic, Phoenician and Jewish history. I argue that following the Seleucid conquest in the early second century BCE, diverse local communities began competing against each other for imperial favor by often resorting to a form of particularistic ethnic discourse, which emphasized claims to ancestral, pre-Hellenistic identities. In a paradoxical process, however, competing communities often adopted Greek cultural idioms to support these particularistic claims. While it is shown how the specific Greek cultural idioms adapted, varied according to sub-region and period, leadership, and geopolitical situation, it is argued that the idiosyncratic competitive dynamic, fostered by Seleucid power, incentivizing both particularistic discourse and the adoption of new Greek cultural idioms, proved pivotal in allowing diverse communities to develop a Greek cultural “infrastructure.” The political-cultural analysis allows us to broaden and nuance our understanding of subsequent Seleucid disintegration. By better integrating the literary and epigraphical sources with a fresh approach to the numismatic evidence (including the study of some unpublished collections) and taking into account the dramatic archaeological advances of the past two decades, I propose a new model for Seleucid decline. The “concessionist” dynamic outlined by recent scholarship, according to which local elites exploited Seleucid dynastic rivalries to extract privileges, needs to be qualified. While describing well the situation in some communities, such as Hasmonaean Judaea, it is not adequate for cities on the Phoenician coast. Rather, I propose an alternative “loyalist-secessionist” model, stressing the greater importance of external actors, especially the underappreciated role of the Ptolemies and a new understanding of Rome’s indirect involvement. The cultural implications for this novel political-historical model come to the fore following a watershed in Seleucid political history, the death of King Antiochus VII in 129 BCE. In an anarchic late-Hellenistic world, smaller cities, such as Tyre and Sidon, upon becoming independent, sought new alliances by re-utilizing their Greek cultural “infrastructure” towards greater institutional and cultic homology with Greek peer polities. In the absence of Seleucid pressure towards particularism, by contrast, traditional elements were rendered obsolete or even counterproductive to these new efforts. Thus, only at this stage of independence from Hellenistic empire non-Greek cultural elements atrophied, explaining the loss of Phoenician language in this period and the decline in sites of native cult. In other words, it was not a long, linear process of “Hellenization” but concrete, largely contingent, historical factors that explain this development in the specific time and place. In the neighboring Hasmonaean kingdom, by contrast, a series of contingent events (e.g., the “Judaization” of the Idumaeans) created a power-multiplier that put the kingdom onto a different trajectory. Prioritizing imperialistic ambitions, and shifting their own Greek “infrastructure” accordingly, they were not incentivized to similarly abandon traditional language and cult. Rather, by adopting a new ethos of a Hellenistic court, the kingdom facilitated the coalescing of newly-Judaized elites around the Hasmonaean dynasty and Jerusalem, fostering a metrocentric imperialistic outlook which paradoxically complemented and cemented rather than replaced the Yahwistic cult and a sense of Jewish particularism. This, I argue, is a key, hitherto overlooked, factor in the continuity of particularistic Jewish identity, which may help historicize and elucidate the seeming Jewish “exceptionalism” in the region. Put differently, the observed cultural divergence between Levantine communities, clearly apparent by the Roman period, can, in fact, be traced to, and elucidated by a specific historical moment, the common experiences of Seleucid imperial domination and the contingent effects of it collapse in the course of the 2nd century BCE.

This study analyzed the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya (North Africa) beginning in late 2010. The first part of the study focused on variables that the North African revolutions shared. These variables were "personalistic-style of dictatorship", "sizable percentage of youth in population", and "economic context". These factors were then discussed as major descriptive variables that caused the revolutionary events in North Africa. The second part of the study assessed why each North African revolution resulted in varying levels of violence. Concluding thoughts were made regarding the similarities and differences between the 2009 Iranian Green Revolution, events in other North African Arab-majority states such as Algeria and Morocco, and the on-going Syrian Revolution to the North African Revolutions

This thesis seeks to contribute to the literature exploring the prospects and obstacles to peace processes. The case study is based on the failed peace process between the Republic of Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) during 2009-2015. It offers a conceptual analysis of the changes in interests, attitudes and relationships that led to the emergence of a peace process but also which influenced its collapse. In doing so, the study draws from conflict resolution theories to analyse the case using the five transformers framework: context transformation, structural transformation, actor transformation, issue transformation, and personal and group transformation (Ramsbotham et al. 2005; 2016). The study found that the conflict became tractable not through external interventions or hurting stalemates as classical theories would hold, but through powerful intellectual leadership that moved beyond strict nationalist imaginaries to adopt different post-nationalist frameworks that emphasised solving the Kurdish question non-violently. Little is known about this type of endogenous peace process in the literature. Likewise, the study also found that, contrary to conventional wisdom on hurting stalemates, talks failed when parties reached near power parity following large and rapid shifts in the distribution of power in the region due to war in Syria and Iraq. A substantially empowered PKK emerged, causing great Turkish fears and uncertainty about implications to status quo, as well as PKK overconfidence and disinterest in settlement. Adversaries resumed war in order to weaken each other and gain more from future concessions.

Since Russia's military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union (EU) has acted in a different and innovative manner. The cooperation has been united and expressed itself in new ways, such as activating the temporary protection directive, as well as making a historic decision to send lethal equipment to Ukraine. However, in previous refugee crises, the EU has acted upon the status quo and suffered from uneven distribution of responsibility between the member states. The absence of cooperation and the pursuit for a unified identity have challenged the European Union's motto of "United in diversity," thus prompting research to be conducted. This case study seeks to examine how the social constructivist perspective, with a collective approach, can contribute to an understanding of the EU, as a global actor. The aim is to shed light on motives and factors that may have influenced the decision-making of the European union. To achieve this, the study employs a methodological discourse analysis of public documents from diverse institutions, thus the primary source. The results reveal that the social constructivist perspective can visualise patterns in how the European union discusses the collective, depending on different occasions and who is granted legitimacy to do so. Additionally, the study advocates for further research from a social constructivist perspective and suggests the inclusion of rational choice institutionalism in future studies.

Lebanon hosts over one million refugees displaced from Syria as a result of the armed conflict—of whom, approximately 15% are adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years of age. Many female adolescent migrants report a decrease in quality of life and an increase in family tensions. This study sought to investigate the emotional well-being of adolescent Syrian girls in Lebanon. We hypothesized that married girls may experience additional hardships and thus greater feelings of dissatisfaction in daily life, given their young marriage and responsibilities at home. This study was part of a large mixed-methods study on the experiences of Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon (n = 1422). Using line-by-line coding and thematic analysis, 188 first-person narratives from Syrian girls were analysed. Our results highlight poor emotional well-being among married and unmarried girls, with sadness, fear and anger commonly mentioned. Some participants expressed feelings of hope, happiness, gratefulness and empowerment. Unmarried girls (n = 111) were more likely to associate their shared stories with negative feelings such as sadness (47% vs. 22%), disappointment (30% vs. 19%), and frustration (32% vs. 22%) than were married girls (n = 77). Four themes emerged as important determinants: access to education, perceived safety, peer support, and longing for life back in Syria. Continued efforts to improve emotional well-being for married and unmarried refugee girls are needed in Lebanon, in particular those that address the nuances for these groups.

År 2015 tvingades tiotusentals syrier på flykt till Sverige för att undkomma det inbördeskrig som härjade i Syrien. Under 2022 invaderas Ukraina av Ryssland vilket tvingade ukrainare på flykt till Sverige. Syftet med denna studie är att med en kritisk diskursanalys undersöka svenska nyhetstidningars framställningar av syriska flyktingar respektive ukrainska flyktingar. Fokus har legat på språket och hur dess tillämpningsformer kopplas samman med makt och sociala skillnader i samhället. Totalt har 20 artiklar utgjort materialet för analysen, vilka har hämtats från Aftonbladet och Dagens Nyheter. Fem artiklar per flyktinggrupp och tidning. En kodningsprocess har gjorts för att kunna identifiera mönster i artiklarna. Mönstren analyserades därefter från begreppet makt med utgångspunkt i Foucaults maktteori, Franzéns makttriangel samt begreppen etablerade och outsiders. De flesta av de analyserade artiklarna lyfte fram en solidaritet i mottagandet av ukrainska flyktingar och generaliserade dem i termer av "ukrainare". Syriska flyktingar porträtterades i stället i relation till hot och generaliserades i termer av "flyktingar". Framställningarna av syriska flyktingar visade på kulturella skillnader jämfört med Sverige där framställningen av ukrainska flyktingar i stället visade på kulturella likheter där en större acceptans för flyktingar från Europa synliggjordes. Med hjälp av en kritisk diskursanalys och vald teori kunde vi komma fram till en slutsats; syriska flyktingar framställs i vårt analyserade material annorlunda än ukrainska flyktingar, baserat på nationellt ursprung och religion. / In 2015, tens of thousands of Syrians were forced to flee to Sweden to escape the civil war in Syria. In 2022, Ukraine was invaded by Russia, forcing Ukrainians to flee to Sweden. The purpose of this study is to use a critical discourse analysis to examine Swedish newspaper's representations of Syrian refugees and Ukrainian refugees. The focus has been on language and how its forms of application are linked to power and social differences in society. A total of 20 articles made up the material for the analysis, which were taken from Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter. Five articles per refugee group and newspaper. The articles about Syrian refugees are from 2015 and the articles about Ukrainian refugees are from 2022. A coding process was carried out to identify patterns in the articles. The patterns were then analyzed from the concept of power based on Foucault's power theory, Franzén’s power triangle and the concepts established and outsiders.  Most of the analyzed articles highlighted a solidarity in the reception of Ukrainian refugees and generalized them in terms of “Ukrainians”. Syrian refugees were instead portrayed in relation to threat and generalized in terms of “refugees”. The portrayals of Syrian refugees showed cultural differences compared to Sweden. The portrayals of Ukrainian refugees showed cultural similarities, revealing a greater acceptance of refugees from Europe. With the help of a critical discourse analysis and selected theory, we were able to conclude; Syrian refugees, in our analyzed material, are presented differently than Ukrainian refugees, based on national origin and religion.

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