The concept of co-optation offers vocabulary to discuss how concerns and demands of feminist movements are transformed on their way to, and within, mainstream organizations and policymaking. However, applications of this concept can have problematic implications, failing to grasp the complexity of social change efforts and contributing to divisions, rather than alliances, between different groups that work and fight for gender equality. This article argues that conceptual tools from organizational institutionalism can help to avoid these pitfalls by capturing the ambivalence of organizational change initiatives, and allowing us to identify not only counterintentional effects, but also subtle and unexpected opportunities of organizational gender equality work. I illustrate my arguments with empirical examples from research on gender equality work in Austrian universities.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse what risks an NGO faces when entering collaboration agreements with a corporation. This is done through a case study of Energifallet, a collaboration project between The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and global furniture company Ikea. The project seeks to improve learning for sustainable development in Swedish schools and is funded by the corporation, which raises legitimacy questions about the independence of the NGO. By conducting contextual text analysis combined with semi-structured interviews, the study concludes that the NGO manages to keep its independence. This is due to an agonistic interorganizational relationship with the corporation, built-in independence mechanisms in the project implementation and the corporation’s political view of CSR. The results also indicate that collaborations between companies and NGOs are a new type of societal phenomenon that has the potential to bring the agenda for sustainable development forward.

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This PhD thesis compares Egypt and Syria’s authoritarian political systems. While the tendency in social science political research treats Egypt and Syria as similarly authoritarian, this research emphasizes differences between the two systems with special reference to institutions and co-optation. Rather than reducibly understanding Egypt and Syria as sharing similar histories, institutional arrangements, or ascribing to the oft-repeated convention that “Syria is Egypt but 10 years behind,” this thesis focuses on how events and individual histories shaped each states current institutional strengthens and weaknesses. Specifically, it explains the how varying institutional politicization or de-politicization affects each state’s capabilities for co-opting elite and non-elite individuals. Beginning with a theoretical framework that considers the limited utility of democratization and transition theoretical approaches, the work underscores the persistence and durability of authoritarianism. Chapter two details the politicized institutional divergence between Egypt and Syria that began in the 1970s. Chapter three and four examines how institutional politicization or de-politicization affects elite and non-elite individual co-optation in Egypt and Syria. Chapter five discusses the study’s general conclusions and theoretical implications. This thesis’s argument is that Egypt and Syria co-opt elites and non-elites differently because of the varying degrees of institutional politicization in each governance system. Rather than view one country as more politically developed than the other, this work argues that Syria’s political institutions are more politicized than their Egyptian counterparts. Syria’s political arena is, thus, described as politicized-patrimonialism. Syria’s politicized-patrimonial arena produces uneven co-optation of elites and non-elites as they are diffused through competing institutions. Conversely, the Egyptian political arena remains highly personalized as weak institutions and individuals are manipulated and molded according to the president’s ruling clique. This is referred to as personalized-patrimonialism. As a consequence, Egypt’s political establishment demonstrates more flexibility in ad hoc altering and adapting its arena depending on the emergence of crises. This study’s theoretical implications suggest that, contrary to modernization and democratization theory’s adage that institutions lead to a political development, politicized institutions within a patrimonial order actually hinder regime adaptation because consensus is harder to achieve and maintain. It is within this context that Egypt’s de-politicized institutional framework advantages its top political elite. In this reading of Egyptian and Syrian politics, Egypt’s personalized political arena is more adaptable than Syria’s. These conclusions do not indicate that political reform is a process underway in either state.

Le recenti trasformazioni dei sistemi politici suggeriscono la necessità di ripensare il rapporto fra l’ideale democratico e il concetto di qualità. I mutamenti e le pretese della rappresentanza politica, infatti, appaiono sempre più inconciliabili con le teorie che, fino a pochi decenni fa, apparivano granitiche e (quasi) immodificabili. L’obiettivo di questa tesi è quello di argomentare tali assunti, non senza prima soffermarsi su alcune questioni preliminari: a livello teorico, cosa si deve intendere per qualità? Quale rapporto può realisticamente intrattenere con il sistema democratico? E, quindi, la qualità può essere selezionata? Le risposte a simili quesiti passano attraverso un approfondimento del rapporto (inevitabile) fra i governanti e i governati, considerato il canale più affidabile per osservare la ‘qualità’ come idea-concetto e per percepire gli effettivi cambiamenti che proietta sulla rappresentanza politica. / The recent transformations of political systems suggest the need to rethink the relationship between the democratic ideal and the concept of quality. Indeed, changes and demands in political representation look increasingly incompatible with the theories that seemed lasting and (almost) immutable until a few decades ago. The aim of this dissertation is to discuss these assumptions, after dwelling on some preliminary questions. At the theoretical level, what is quality? Which relationship can it realistically have with the democratic system? And, therefore, can quality be selected? To answers such questions, the dissertation goes through an in-depth analysis of the (inevitable) relationship between rulers and the ruled. This relationship is considered the most reliable channel both to observe ‘quality’ as an idea-concept and to perceive the actual changes that it projects on political representation.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:25:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2124.pdf: 3160904 bytes, checksum: 9372f4770975bb6a193632da83ad79c8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-08-20 / This case study aims to analyze the participation of the city of São Carlos at the Constitutionalist Movement of 1932. It begins from a theoretical reference which allows to understand the main political groups that articulate the Constitutionalist Movement, the ideological speech that conducts them and the artifices used on the co-optation of the social classes. First of all, it is developed a situation analysis, and after that, the study focuses the local approach, where the participation of the city of São Carlos at the Constitutionalist Movement makes sense considering local politics since the First Republic, specially under the influence of the fast social and political changes occurred between the 20 s and 30 s. Therefore, the study of the local approach allows to understand the contradictions of the Constitutionalist Movement of 1932, with the defense of the democratic principles coexisting with the authoritarian methods for the co-optation of the public opinion and the restriction the dissidences. / O presente estudo de caso teve como objetivo analisar o processo de engajamento do município de São Carlos no movimento constitucionalista de 1932. Para tanto, partimos de um referencial teórico que nos permitiu compreender quem são os principais grupos políticos articuladores do movimento constitucionalista, qual o discurso ideológico que os move e quais os artifícios usados na cooptação das demais classes sociais. A partir de uma análise conjuntural, passamos, num segundo momento, a privilegiar a esfera local, onde a análise da participação do município de São Carlos no movimento de 1932 passa a ter sentido a partir da compreensão da política local desde a Primeira República, sobretudo, sob a influência das rápidas mudanças políticas e sociais que se processam na virada dos anos 1920 1930. O estudo da esfera local, portanto, permitiu apreender o movimento constitucionalista de 1932 em suas contradições, onde a defesa de princípios democráticos coexistem com métodos discricionários no sentido de cooptar a opinião pública e cercear as dissidências.

'Institutional critique' is a term that refers to a range of diverse artistic practices and discourses that emerged at the end of the 1960s and that continue in the present. In spite of their differences, they all share a concern with the institutional conditioning of artists and artworks. Various historicizations of institutional critique (Alberro and Stimson, 2009; Raunig and Ray, 2009; Welchman, 2006) concur that one could distinguish two 'phases': artists of the 1960s and 1970s allegedly investigated the possibilities of an escape towards an 'outside' of the art institution, whereas those of the 1990s analysed the ways in which the artistic subject reproduced the structures of the art institution. Since the beginning of the 2000s various artists and authors have revisited the histories and legacies of institutional critique. This growing interest was triggered by the perceived intensification of a process that began at the end of the 1960s; it refers to the recuperation and neutralization of artistic types of critique by what Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) have called the 'new spirit' of capitalism. In this context, the Austrian philosopher Gerald Raunig and the members of the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies have proposed the hypothesis that 'a new phase' of institutional critique was to emerge. However, this proposition was based less on empirical evidence, than on a 'political and theoretical necessity to be found in the logic of institutional critique' (Raunig, 2009, 3). This thesis is a response to this set of circumstances. By asking 'what are the conditions and possibilities of institutional critique?' it investigates the categories of institutional critique's logic. My main argument is that a 'phase change' of institutional critique could and should be understood through the apparatus of Derridean deconstruction. This implies a criticism of the idea that one needs to escape the art institution in order to respond to urgencies stemming from the social, economic, and political realms (Truth Is Concrete Platform, 2012). At the same time, I will also refute the idea that institutional critique is trapped in the art institution (Fraser, 2009a). Institutional critique works on the remainder and rest that necessarily escapes the instituting will and intention of defining and describing in an exhaustive manner the whatness of what (art) is (Boltanski, 2011). I show that between critique and the art institution there is an irreducible relation of symbiosis and cohabitation, and that the deconstructive logic of institutional critique allows it to be both partner and adversary, at the same time, of the art institution.

The general purpose of this thesis is to contribute to further understanding of the academic appointment process explored and defined as participation in a collegial educational process. The appointment process for academic positions has historically been regulated by state authorities ever since the first university was established in Sweden and has continuously been questioned for necessity, procedure etc. The object of study is the appointment process focusing the consideration of teaching skill in appointing academic teachers. A theoretical construction is used as a method in order to grasp what the experts and applicants consider. The thesis draws theoretical inspiration from the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu especially his work on social practice and his explanations within praxeological knowledge. In this thesis cultural capital, habitus and doxa are used as concepts for constructing a social practice. Inspired by Bourdieu’s concepts, the appointment process is made visible grounded on documentation: judgments of qualifications written by external experts and the applicants’ documentation in their applications. The empirical material on merits is analyzed according to Bourdieu’s indicators on symbolic capacities. The disposition of habitus (as an inner organizing principle) is limited to cultural capital and background demographic data. The indicators on scientific skill are also transmitted into symbolic capacities on teaching skill. Three appointments as assistant professors are analyzed, framed by information on advertisement, description of documentation, time lapse and final decision in appointment committees. The main conclusions are that the experts select whom to appoint using their practical sense unaware of the driving forces, explained as social practice. The experts act in line with the purpose of the assignment and they follow all the rules and instructions. Teaching skill is focused by the applicants and experts as practical mastery in the subject field (pedagogical authority). Selection is explained by the concept of habitus. Another conclusion is the tendency to “nuanced” co-optation similar to when appointments were made by self selection and teaching ability was important in early 19th century. A final conclusion is that in positioning of arguments in shared beliefs (doxa) in questioning the appointment process, researchers in the early years of this century represent heterodox opinions.

In Canada, ‘official multiculturalism’ is often viewed as working against historical exclusions by actively promoting a national culture of openness and diversity, and fostering a community of communities, united by mutual recognition and the celebration of differences. Through this characterization, the Canadian nation narrative has shifted to accommodate formerly excluded stories so that it is now the space of all stories. I argue that it is in these unity-seeking discourses that so inflect discussions of diversity and multiculturalism in Canada that critique is co-opted and, in the guise of inclusion, it exists in a weakened and static iteration. I outline a theoretical framework by working through texts that broadly link the study of nation-building with the construction of nation narratives or national histories and contextualize this through an examination of critical theories about nation-building in Canada. I apply this theoretical framework to two sites: statistics and literature. More specifically, I look at how census ‘identity’ (‘ethnic origins’ and ‘visible minority’) categories are constructed as more or less neutral statistical measurement tools used to further and legitimate multicultural narratives of the nation. For example, I examine Michael Adams’ Unlikely Utopia in order to show how the findings of censuses and public opinion polls are integrated into a multicultural nation narrative. The fiction I discuss – Joy Kogawa’s Obasan, Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms and David Chariandy’s Soucouyant – illuminates how narrative practices can work to reinforce nation-building practices or critique them, and, at times, serve to illustrate how critique itself can work to reinforce the relationships it analyses. I suggest that reading Canadian immigrant narratives as political texts can work to reinforce and/or disrupt the imagined coherence of the multicultural nation narrative by resisting closures and domains of acceptable speech, as well as disrupting the imposed linearity of nation narratives. By reading performances of nationhood as processes of narrativization, it is possible to critically examine the exclusions, implicit and explicit, of the construction of an intelligible nation.