Evo Morales became Latin Americas first indigenous president in 2005. Morales praised the indigenous peoples, the indigenous movements and aimed at ending their political marginalization in Bolivia. However, this politicization and framing of indigenous identity and rights was later turned into his disadvantage. In 2011, Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB) decided to mobilize against the government's decision to build a highway through Isiboro Secure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS), where three of the indigenous groups represented by CIDOB lives. The decision was taken without consolidation with the population living in the area. In this study Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow's theoretical framework concerning framing processes and social movements are used to analyze CIDOBs collective action framing of their indigenous identity and rights in their mobilization in the TIPNIS conflict. In the result, it became evident that CIDOB used their indigenous identity and rights in different framing strategies including master frames, frame alignment processes, diagnostic, and prognostic framing.

The purpose of this thesis is to try to understand the moderation process of the Tunisian Islamic political party Ennahda between the years of 2011-2016. This case is studied within the context of the democratisation process that took place in Tunisia, in the five years after the Arab spring and the idea that political Islam might provide a path to democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. The theoretical framework chosen for understanding this process was in form of a theory about under which circumstances religious political parties politically moderate. The method used was a qualitative content analysis. The analysis was conducted by dividing the chapters into thematic topics that emerged out of the material with the framework then being applied to those themes. The research found that the theory provided theoretical understanding for why the Ennahda Movement became more moderate, especially when looking at factors regarding political entrepreneurship. However, other factors such as a dedication to democratic values, non-violence, and a willingness to change throughout its history, also proved important in the case of moderation within the Ennahda Movement.

This thesis investigates the notions of military masculinities in the gender training of the Nordic Centre of Gender in Military Operations (NCGM). Military masculinities are argued to create problematic gender norms that value men and devalue women. Therefore, there is a need to see if NCGM does reinforce or construct these gender norms into their training. The masculine norms are constructed as a dichotomy to the female norms, giving traits such as men being protectors and women the protected, and men being perpetrators and women being victims. The study is carried out through a qualitative text analysis of publications found on NCGM’s website. The analysis examines the extent of military masculine traits in their publications, and how these traits are depicted. The results show that NCGM is aware of the gender stereotypes of military masculinities, but they still do depict men and women in stereotypical feminine and masculine roles.

This study examines if the process of democratic backsliding is observable in the discursive patterns of a government that is the driving force of democratic erosion which can be useful when attempting to discern if a government has undemocratic ambitions. The actor analyzed to answer the research question is the government of Ethiopia. Three hypotheses have been developed based on Levitsky and Ziblatt’s model of democratic backsliding and from these, an analytical framework containing a set of questions has been developed. The questions have been used to systematically analyze the source material. This study found that the Ethiopian government framed those in law and law enforcement agencies and other opposition it perceives as adversaries as illegitimate actors while glorifying and legitimizing their own. In addition, the study found that the government argued that criticism directed at it not following laws or the constitution was either from an illegitimate source or not based on facts.

This thesis explores the underlying assumptions guiding the United Nations’ activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with regard to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). The purpose is to reveal how the organization’s ‘End Impunity’ narrative represents the problem of CRSV and to analyze the ideational premises that legitimize the solution of increased accountability and prosecution. This thesis conducts a qualitative discourse analysis inspired by the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be’ approach to analyze the implicit content of the narrative’s key policy texts. The results show that the narrative problematizes the inability of the Congolese judiciary to prosecute perpetrators, the disregard of legislation prohibiting sexual violence and the lack of justice provided to survivors of these crimes. These problematizations are reliant on assumptions of the rationality of perpetrators of sexual violence, as well as the universality of the Western human rights norm and ‘modern’ institutions. The findings suggest that the UN represents the problem of CRSV to be a problem of law and weak legal institutions in the DRC. Whilst this could be contingent on the ‘collapsed nature’ of the Congolese state, this thesis argues that as the DRC is a central case in the UN’s efforts to fight CRSV, the results of the analysis can be applied to the wider population of countries affected by conflict and sexual violence.

Indigenous autonomy, self-government and self-determination have historically been an area of conflict within the settler colonial state of Canada. This thesis aims to analyze critically the Canadian state’s alleged progressive nature in regard to nation-to-nation relations as well as the discourses that portray Canadian society as fostering Indigenous rights. Grounded in previous research and contextual background, this study uses the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) to investigate how Canadian media produces and reproduces discourse around the issues connected with Indigenous resistance since the ‘Oka Crisis’ of 1990, based on the selected material published by The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The findings illustrate that while liberal-influenced narratives have improved, significant identification of decolonization within Canada’s media was not found and the structures of settler colonialism remain largely unchanged.

This study investigates Swedish aid and its focus on democracy and human rights. It analyses the space given to these normative objectives in relation to pragmatic considerations like strategic interests and institutional incentives. It does so by reviewing official documents and interviewing aid actors at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), to outline what objectives and incentives are guiding in Swedish aid. It also analyses how these factors affect critical decisions on whether aid should be suspended or not, to see how much normative objectives matter in such contexts. By doing so, this study contributes to the literature on democracy aid and aid suspension, as well as to research on Sweden as a donor country. Previous research has shown that normative considerations are often subordinated to strategic interests in foreign aid because of the complexity of many conflicting interests. In addition, decisions guided by strategic interests often include institutional incentives as well. This study finds that the policy frameworks for Swedish aid are integrated in the work of MFA and Sida. Both normative and pragmatic considerations, mainly institutional incentives, are referred to both in the documents and by the aid actors. In contrast to much other literature however, normative principles seem to dominate in Swedish aid. There is great emphasis on the importance of poverty reduction and promotion of democracy and human rights, even though the whole picture with donor interests also has to be taken into account.

How can party system design contribute to managing ethnic relations? This thesis investigatesthe relationship between party system design and the type of nation-building efforts pursuedin a country. More specifically, whether a country allows ethnicity to be a source of politicalmobilization or not and how that relates to nation-building policies having an assimilating ora multicultural character. Departing from the debate between the integrative approach and theconsociational approach, theories of institutional design, the thesis theorizes that countriesbanning ethnic political parties are pursuing civic nationalism and should therefore havenation-building policies with an assimilating character. On the other hand, it theorizes thatcountries that do not restrict parties to form on ethnic basis will have multiculturalnation-building policies, striving for a multicultural nationalism. Using a ‘most similarsystems design’ the study investigates the nation-building policies in Kenya and Nigeria, twosimilar countries with different party system designs. It mainly investigates education policiesto look for indicators of assimilating and multicultural nation-building. Taken together, theresults show that national unity and integration is an overarching goal which overridescultural recognition in both cases. The correlation between party system design and type ofnation-building policies show to be weak since the two countries have very similar policies.However, some nuances in means to achieve national unity are found.

EU’s international role as a normative power can be questioned as the current foreign policy of the Eastern Partnership implies a limit to the union’s ability to democratize. An alignment with EU norms is often seen through a dichotomy of compliance or non-compliance, overlooking other forms of resistance stemming from a nexus of international compliance pressure, and defiance pressure from hybrid regime structures. This applies to Georgia, a pro-EU country in the Eastern Partnership, committed to EU norms while maintaining a skewed playing field in favor of incumbents. Through the application of a theoretical framework developed in memory studies, a range of rhetorical adaptation strategies employed by the ruling party regarding electoral reforms delineates a norm navigation. A qualitative content analysis of statements and events relating to the long-contested electoral system during 2015-2019 shows a variation of strategies used, pointing in a direction of increased pressure to align with prescribed EU norms. Whether EU or domestic political forces can be credited is difficult to determine, yet the nuances of norm resistance are important to analytically separate from overarching labels, as states’ rhetorical commitments need a critical perspective to better understand the limits to EU’s normative power in the Eastern Partnership.

Development organisations are generally believed to be fairly gender equal workplaces, with gender related issues seen as something external or foreign to the organisation. However, all organisations exist within gendered structures, and should not be considered as gender neutral or separate. Building on the theory of feminist institutionalism, this paper aims to study how informal gender power structures are experienced by employees in a development organisation, namely the Folke Bernadotte Academy. To research this, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to study the experiences and opinions of the respondents. A feminist institutionalist framework identified three areas of particular interest, “Tasks and assignments”, “Support norms” and “Interactions between employees”. After conducting interviews the information was analysed. The conclusions drawn are that FBAs employees describe experiences of some gender power structures. Most notably relating to parenting norms and logic of appropriateness. Seconded employees in general seemed to experience more gender power structures than internal employees. Additionally FBA and its employees seem to express the view that gender inequality is an external problem or that they are unaffected because their workforce is made up of a majority of women.