This dissertation introduces instruments of agent-based modeling into the literature of contentious politics and broadens the application of game theory and quantitative analytical tools in this field. This work is composed of three working papers that focus specifically on the following topics: • In the first paper, I present a dynamic agent-based model encompassing the most important and up-to-date findings in the field of contentious politics and synthesize them within one homogeneous theoretical framework. After providing the theoretical description of the model, I run computer simulations to test the concrete functioning of the theoretical dynamics within it and find consistent analogies with real-world events. • In the second paper, I analyze the influence of socioeconomic inequality on individuals’ participation in contentious episodes. I do so by analyzing the socioeconomic trends that characterized three Arab countries – Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan – during the decade that preceded the 2011 uprisings and the social characteristics of those who participated in the subsequent protests, as they emerged in the 2011 wave of the Arab Barometer surveys. • In the third paper, I provide an overview of the relatively limited literature that applies the principles of game theory to the study of political or religious radicalization. After describing its main findings, I suggest how Rapoport’s seminal work on the historical “waves of terrorism” can be treated dynamically through some fundamental game-theoretic principles such as coordination problems, Thomas Shelling’s focal points and in the solutions proposed by the literature on correlated equilibria.

Thesis advisor: William Gamson / If anyone in the media were to openly claim that a political rally is "a rally is a rally," they would no doubt befall a windstorm of strong reactions from those who feel their contributions to politics and to the cause for which they are rallying uniquely important. Today, it is not only those on the left that would make this claim but also conservatives who have been defending their right to rally and forging their own brand of "grassroots". It is safe to say that no one would overtly make this claim, however the media's actions in this case are stronger than their words. Through the use of stale framing packages, the mainstream media is displaying that the "Restoring Honor Rally," the "One Nation Working Together March" and the "Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear" are essentially the same due to their nearly identical forms. Analysis of samples from the coverage of the three mega-rallies reveal what these media packages are and what issues go unnoticed as a result of such systematic reporting. Therefore, this paper goes about identifying those stale media frames, displaying the way in which the media relied upon the form of the events to dictate the nature of the reporting consequently hindering a deeper understanding of the functions. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Freiburg im Breisgau.

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An investigation of contentious action by associations representing six occupational groups at different socio-economic levels reveals that middle-class groups tend to favor contentious means of making demands such as demonstrations and strikes, while lower-class groups tend to avoid contentious action, preferring more institutionalized or contained means. While such findings might appear to be puzzling given middle-class groups’ superior access to state institutions and the Habermasian concept of a rational, orderly, bourgeois public sphere, they are consistent with the literature on resource mobilization and social movements in the West: Access to financial resources and strong mobilizing structures enables the middle-class groups to take advantage of a political opportunity structure that rewards contentious action. / text

The main goal of this master's degree thesis is to provide information about position of a judge during evidence proceeding in contentious procedure with special focus on production of evidence. In the text I often use particular decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic and the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic to demonstrate how theoretical legal institutes are applied in practice. I have decided to choose this topic because I am very interested in judge's profession and its practical aspects especially within evidence proceeding. More reasons for my research are stated in the very first introductory part of my theses. The whole theses is composed of three parts and each of them dealing with different sides of evidence proceeding or position of a judge within the meaning of his rights, duties, activity and also responsibility. Part One generally characterizes evidence proceeding and it makes the foundation for following part that is focused on partial phase of evidence proceeding (i.e. production of evidence). This part is divided into four chapters. The first chapter describes contentious and non-contentious procedure and also gives an explanation of main distinctions between these concepts. The second chapter concerns with basic principles of justice and civil procedure. The...

The topic of this diploma thesis is the declaratory principle in contentious and non- contentious proceedings. The aim of this thesis is to describe how the declaratory principle is applied in both forms of Czech civil proceedings, contentious and non-contentious. There are some differences between application of the declaratory principle in a contentious proceedings and application of this principle in a non-contentious proceedings. Parties are much more free to dispose of their claims in contentious proceedings, because the declaratory principle is one of the main principles of this form of civil proceedings. It is necessary to say that legal system in the Czech Republic is the continental legal system and the declaratory principle is traditional for continental legal system. The declaratory principle also means that the court is limited in its decision making. It is not possible to decide more than it has been asked to. The major part of this thesis is about disposition acts. How it was mentioned before, parties are free to dispose their claims in contentious proceedings and the reason for it is that they are able to use many disposition acts. Each of these procedural acts is defined in its own subchapter of this work and there are also mentioned related judgements. Other parts of this diploma thesis are...

The thesis explores a 5-year period in the political history of Spain. It looks at a series of political processes and projects, beginning with the 15M/Indignados social movement. These projects go from 15M in 2011 to the creation of new digital platforms for participatory democracy for the city of Barcelona in 2016. The thesis defends the idea that these cases add up to a cycle of political contention, which is defined as “the 15M cycle of contention”. It supports the idea that a core thread throughout the cycle has been the challenging of the liberal representative model of democracy and some of its key social forms, primarily in discourse, but also in practice. The cases within the cycle vindicated, and experimented with, alternative forms and practices of democracy. Concretely, they tried to move away from the current liberal representative model, preeminent since XVIII century, towards a more participatory one. The thesis also defends the argument that a key driver of these democratic experiments has been “technopolitics”, otherwise, practices and processes that hybridize politics and technologies (particularly, information and communication technologies). The thesis focuses on three paradigmatic cases of the 15M cycle of contention: 15M itself, a social movement born in 2011; the X party, a new party created in 2013 by 15M activists; and Decidim.barcelona, a digital platform for participation, launched in early 2016 by the Barcelona City Council, designed by people involved in previous projects within the 15M cycle. The first of these three cases covers the sphere of social movements and civil society, the second, that of political parties, and the third, that of the State at the municipal level. I look at the discourses and the practices of democracy in these processes and projects, and whether they innovate or not in relation to pre-existing political forms in social movements, political parties, and the State. In every case I look at the technopolitics deployed by the actors involved. For analyzing such technopolitics, I look at three main elements: discourses, practices, and technological infrastructures. These are used, respectively, as the main entry into the semantics, the pragmatics and the syntax of technopolitics. As a complementary view, I look beyond the cases and into the cycle. Concretely, to the variations in discourses on democracy and technopolitical practices. I suggest that the cycle as a whole can be conceived as: a) a process of “reassembling of democracy”, a reassembling oriented towards a democratization of the political field (and society more broadly) beyond the liberal representative model; and b) as a case of “technopolitical contention”, in which political struggles have been organically connected to technological practices. Since, differently from traditional democratization processes from XVIII century onwards, this one has not been oriented to establish but to challenge the structures of liberal representative democracy (f.i.: the current structure and centrality of representation, traditional political parties, Parliaments, etc.), I define it as an attempt at “alter-democratization”. I also show that this alter-democratization process challenges not only the forms, but also the ontology of liberal representative democracy, concretely, some of its key subjective and collective forms, as well as its key modes of political relation. By looking at civil society, parties and State institutions I try to map changes in various areas of the political field in liberal democracies. In that sense, the cycle has pointed towards (although has not always succeeded in bringing about) alternative political ontologies and forms of life. In order to analyze both the cycle and the three key cases under study, I have recurred to a multi-method and multi-disciplinary approach. I have primarily relied on qualitative methods, such as participant observation, fieldwork, interviews, and digital materials (blog posts, journals, etc.). I spent more than 5 years as participant in various 15M cycle projects. Secondarily, I have used quantitative methods: along with fellow activists and researchers, in 2014 we ran a digital survey that gathered 1000+ responses among 15M participants. Finally, I have also used social network analysis methods to map activity on social networks. In terms of disciplines, I primarily draw resources from political science, sociology, philosophy, and STS.

The concept of social membership is the mainframe for this dissertation, which encompasses four independent articles that approach the boundaries of social membership from different perspectives. Empirically, the focus lies on mobilizing groups that demand an extension of rights and/or inclusion for documented and undocumented immigrants in two European immigration countries: Sweden and Spain. I have defined the processes through which mobilizing actors (immigrants themselves and diverse supporters of their cause) interact with boundary-making actors (institutional actors, policy makers), whom through their positions participate in drawing the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion, as negotiating social membership. To study these processes, I have performed 68 interviews with actors as mobilizing immigrants, activists mobilizing on behalf of immigrants, representatives of NGOs and trade unions, policy-makers and politicians. Two main types of claims appeared: undocumented migrants’ rights groups mobilizing for residence permits and social rights, and documented immigrants’ (and their supporters’) advocacy against ethnic discrimination. Furthermore, I have included a study that reflects the tensions over social membership within immigrant communities. The gendered dimension is its main focus, as it illustrates the value conflicts over gender equality and ethnic diversity brought to the surface through the debates following so-called honour killings in Sweden, and the difficulties faced by young immigrant women mobilizing simultaneously against racism and patriarchal oppression.  The thesis consists of four independent articles within the overall framework of mobilizing groups demanding extended rights for and/or inclusion of immigrants. By using immigrants’ rights mobilizations, negotiations, debates and agendas, my general aim has been to explore the processes through which social membership is being contested and negotiated by a wide range of actors. In doing so, it has been possible to reveal how legal and symbolic boundaries create exclusionary processes that pose constraints on the social membership of immigrants with different legal statuses. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript.</p>

The thesis deals with legal regulation of participation in contentious proceedings. Procedural subjects are one of the definitional elements of the civil proceedings; they are mainly the court and parties to proceedings. Therefore, legal regulation of parties to proceedings is an important component of law of civil procedure. The thesis depicts the present legal regulation of participation in contentious proceedings, evaluates its suitability and proposes appropriate changes with regard to clarity, unambiguity and fulfilment of the right to a fair trial. It includes description and analysis of the effective legal regulation, examines main problems, compares interpretation and opinions in professional literature and also deals with the court interpretation of relevant legal regulation. Moreover, a partial aim of the thesis is to depict the reflection of the new civil code in the procedural regulation and to evaluate whether such reflection is optimal. The thesis is divided into eight chapters which deal with the component topics. The first chapter deals with general matters of parties to contentious proceedings including material and procedural standing and the principle of equality. The second chapter concerns prerequisites for participation in proceedings, thus analyses capacity to sue and to be...