ii Abstract This research project explores the impact of Western broadcasting on the public opinion of the Soviet audience in the Perestroika and Glasnost periods. Specifically, it focuses on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) contribution to changing attitudes of the Soviet public to the communist regime and ruling party, and constructing a positive image of Western democratic values during the relevant period of study. The theoretical approach to the investigation of RFE/RL broadcasting is based on media effects theories, particularly agenda-setting and framing theories. According to them, the media are not simply a conduit of information, but able to shape public opinion. By emphasising the salience of topics and particular aspects and characteristics of the issues, the media set public agenda and influence on people's perceptions about these issues. The study to assess RFE/RL's impact draws on audience research, quantitative and qualitative data analysis. It examines geographical reach and transmission frequencies of the Radio's broadcasts and analyses the content of the most featured programmes to explore how they framed the reality. The findings from the quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as the audience research data, demonstrate that RFE/RL's programming set anticommunist agenda...

There is a growing body of literature arguing that NGOs are an important tool in the efforts of civil society to influence the actions of the State, especially in the process of economic development. NGOs are primarily seen as effective advocates for the less privileged sectors of civil society. This study examines the influence of local NGOs participation in the implementation of PLANAFLORO, a regional economic development program partially funded by the World Bank in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. This study focuses on four issues that are commonly used to justify the inclusion of NGOs in the development process: representativeness, accountability, autonomy and effectiveness. This study relies on three basic methods of data gathering: focused interviews of key informants, questionnaire-based surveys of different stake-holder groups, and information from secondary sources. This study’s results challenge the common wisdom regarding the positive impacts of NGO participation in economic development programs, and on their contribution to democratic governance. NGOs participating in PLANAFLORO faced great institutional and political difficulties in the process of participation. Many NGOs did not have either the institutional capabilities or the financial autonomy to influence the process of policy-making in PLANAFLORO effectively. Moreover, most NGOs did not have mechanisms of accountability to inform the program’s intended beneficiaries of the state of PLANAFLORO’s implementation. Finally, both the local State and the World Bank only reluctantly accepted the participation of NGOs in PLANAFLORO. This fact served to greatly limit the contribution of NGOs in PLANAFLORO. / Ph. D.

In the globalized world, the distribution of power is spread among different types of actors, including non-states. Diasporas in that respect possess an ability to gain actorness. Especially in the frames of ‘soft power’ since the sources of that power is tight to attractiveness. The notion of ‘soft power’ has gained attention from the states globally, and Russia is not left aside. It is activated by the Russian state to pursue its foreign policy goals, especially in the EU states, due to the difficult diplomatic relations as an outcome of the Crimean crisis. Public diplomacy, as a tool of soft power, refers to the communicational process with the foreign public, and the ground resource of it is civil society. The paradox is situated in the target of the Russian state, its diaspora. Rossotrudnichestvo, the main player in the Russian public diplomacy, carries direct responsibilities over compatriot policies. This thesis contributes to an understanding of the aim of Russian public diplomacy towards diaspora. This study utilizes the theoretical frames of ‘soft power’, its tool ‘public diplomacy’, and conjunction with the ‘diaspora’. For the purpose of this study, the Russian interest towards its compatriots is traced through its cultural institution in Brussels (the representative office of Rossotrudnichestvo). The thesis concludes firstly that the aim of Russian public diplomacy is not to construct an attractive image in the eyes of the public abroad but to secure itself. Through the prism of neo-functionalism, Russia identifies national security as a focal point in the construction of foreign policies, which cause institutionalization of its diaspora. Secondly, the research reveals the double behavior of Russia with civil society. While internally, it distances the civil sector from the engagement with the public diplomacy activities, externally, it is actively institutionalizing ‘the insiders of the foreign public’ through the diasporic organizations.

Please note: this work is indefinitely embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and fill out the appropriate web form. / Based on a qualitative study on the new development of Presbyterianism in China, this thesis explores the urban and rational side of Chinese Christianity, so as to open an empirical window on meso-level social change in urban China. From an empirical perspective, although the organizational form of the Presbyterian Church in China and its scope are still in the fledging stage, the discursive practices and the institutional and coalition building of Chinese Presbyterians fit into the profile of a social movement. This preliminary data collected so far examines the emerging Protestant elites and their role in the precarious civil society of today’s China. On the normative side, these Chinese Presbyterians articulate a strong political theology that blends the Anabaptist and the reformed theologies. In addition, the institutional and the missional tension of this movement is also under examination. In the end, this project is an experiment that tests the commensurability between theology and social sciences, especially the viability of theologically engaged ethnography. / 2031-01-01

ABSTRACT From the 18th century, a considerable element of legislative democracy has been that of national budgeting. This has been substantially critical in assuring legislative statute over the government which has been controlled by kings. Predictably, the notion of public participation in budgetary processes has been disparate by governments in Africa. Due to its technocratic and elitist design, it is mostly a complex issue to recognise the making of national budgets by ordinary citizens in South Africa. However, topical developments have shown that the processes of creating national budgets should consider civil society’s role particularly in evaluating the impact of budgets on the poor. It is against this technocratic and elitist architectural backdrop of the state, regarding public budgeting and implementation, which this study employs the People’s Budget Campaign as a unique civil society organisation advocating for an alternative budget process in South Africa. This research has used a qualitative method in analysing data collected from primary and secondary sources, semi-structured interviews, as well as direct and participant observation of PBC activities.

This thesis investigates the relationship between the ecosystem of independent media organisations in Lebanon, and their relationship to the European Union, specifically the European Endowment for Democracy. The analysis follows a trajectory starting from Beirut all the way back to Brussels, the lens of focus widening as it reaches its conclusion. It does so through first focusing on the case study of Megaphone News and whether it can be considered a Non Profit Media Organisation as proposed by economist, Julia Cagé. Then it takes testimonies from seven respondents across a number of these organisations to consider whether their approach and strategies align with the theory of participative journalism. Finally it uses thematic clusters to broaden discussion to consider the European Endowment’s role in the development of Lebanon’s independent media.  It concludes that European involvement in this context is fundamentally limited and impact by interests other than democracy assistance. It shows that neither theories can accommodate the interdependence and collaboration between organisations. It shows that the work of these independent media organisations has influenced the development of the European Endowment in a relationship that can be characterised as symbiotic and contradictory to the founding principles of this European Union institution. Both theories do not fully accommodate for the difficulties of operation in a collapsing economy and an unrepresentative political elite. The fluidity and innovation of these organisations in difficult conditions generate insights about how the theories and the relationship with Europe may be improved to facilitate continuation of development. The European Endowment is crucial in facilitating the growth of independent media in Lebanon, but those organisations have also shifted perspective of the Endowment in return. The content of this facilitation reveals internal limitations to democracy assistance efforts.

Forms of physical interaction have been restricted during the covid-19 pandemic, which has forced civil society organizations (CSO:s), with the aim to create and maintain participation and engagement for their cause, to move activities aimed to create engagement to a digital space. This thesis aims to investigate which lessons these organizations bring with them from the period based on perceived possibilities and limitations with creating engagement in a digital space. Departing from affordance theory and theory of social capital, this paper tries to gain understanding for the relationship between the organizations’ social context and the technological attributes to further understand which implications it has for virtual engagement’s three communicative components: network ties, content, and interaction. With case study research design, five semi structured interviews with employees from five Swedish CSO:s, working with sustainable and global development, were conducted to get an inside perspective of the challenges and possibilities during the period. Results show that even though digital media entails many possibilities in regards to reach beyond geographical borders and effective resource management, the organizations have learned that some communicative aspects of physical gatherings cannot be replaced. The biggest limitation mentioned in regards to digital media is the aspect of informal relationship building interaction which is imperative to create and maintain engagement. Global and sustainable development means an inherent incentive to use inclusive and sustainable solutions, but it is also important to understand which aspects the digital format cannot replace or facilitate if we move towards a future where restrictions may become part of everyday life.

The covid-19 pandemic forged a more intensely digital world, complicating civil society actors’ menu of options for channeling and framing their advocacy goals. As both a product and study of pandemic-era politics, this dissertation is concerned with understanding how the internet and social media shape associational life in Kazakhstan. I draw on three forms of ethnographic data collected online between October 2020 and February 2022, including semi-structured interviews, visual analysis of social media posts, and digital participant observation. I demonstrate how Kazakhstani civil society actors devise strategies to pursue reform, how they debate theories of political change, and how they exercise agency in a political system that seeks to control the public sphere. I argue that civil society groups use social media platforms to leverage power differentials across levels of administration to advance rights claims and negotiate for reform. Activists and rights defenders flock to various social media platforms because of each site’s unique technological infrastructure. They leverage different logics of visibility and bridge physical and digital forms of contentious politics to demand accountability from an authoritarian government. In addition to providing a more complete understanding of civil society dynamics in Kazakhstan, this study suggests that, in repressive contexts, civil society actors who opt for within-system engagement have not necessarily been coopted and activists do not always take dissent underground. This dissertation is an example of digital political ethnography, which stands to grow not only as a standalone method, but also a bridge to big data analysis in political science. I demonstrate the importance of an ethnographic sensibility while approaching the internet as a site of inquiry to understand political subjectivity.

The United Nations (2016) and International Olympic Committee (2015) have offered analyses highlighting sport's contributions to societal well-being. More particularly, and for their part, scholars have suggested that sport for development (SFD) initiatives can encourage the development of social capital (Kidd and Donnelly, 2007; Nicholson and Hoye, 2008; Lyras and Welty Peachy, 2011; Coalter, 2013). This dissertation investigated those researchers' claims by exploring the relationship between two SFD organization sports programs and social capital formation among their youth participants in Kigali, Rwanda. I conducted semi-structured interviews with the leaders of both SFD entities to obtain their perceptions concerning whether and how the efforts I examined were linked to social capital creation. I utilized the World Bank's Social Capital Initiative Networks View of social capital for my analysis (Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). This study's participants, coaches and curriculum designers, argued that sport for development initiatives fostered such relationships in a variety of ways, including easing ethnic divisions among those participating and challenging social norms, especially as related to gender. Those interviewed for this inquiry also suggested that SFD programs encouraged the formation of simultaneous amalgams of bonding and bridging social capital among participating youth; novel and potentially powerful evidence of the efficacy of sport programming. / Doctor of Philosophy / The United Nations (2016) and International Olympic Committee (2015) have each highlighted the significant contributions sport has made, and can make, to societal well-being. Previous research has suggested that sport for development (SFD) initiatives encourage these results be encouraging the development of social capital (Kidd and Donnelly, 2007; Nicholson and Hoye, 2008; Lyras and Welty Peachy, 2011; Coalter, 2013). This inquiry explored the relationship between SFD and three forms of social capital as perceived by interviewees drawn from the leaders of two such nongovernmental programs in Kigali, Rwanda. The study utilized the Networks View of social capital developed by the World Bank's Social Capital Initiative to examine whether sport for development initiatives fostered social capital (Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). According to this study's participants, such efforts did indeed promote social capital in a variety of ways, including easing ethnic divides and challenging social norms related to gender. Additionally, interviewees also suggested that SFD programs encouraged the formation of simultaneous bundles of bonding and bridging social capital among participating youth; novel and potentially powerful evidence of the efficacy of sport programming.

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