This thesis is aimed at analysing key similarities and differences of the Englsih Defence League and the German-born social movement PEGIDA. Whereas both movements have a common goal, to stop the perceived Islamisation of their respective countries, and Europe as a whole, the means and methods vary greatly. Moreover, it is argued that the followership of said organisations differ in age, social background and motivation. Both organisations are able to exert a certain amount of influence on their supporters, the rest of the society, as well as policy- makers and the political elite. Both organisations have influenced the societal and political climate of their respective countries of origin and also in the countries in the European neighbourhood with links to individuals and organisations in North America.

This essay is an analytical study that examines the ideological features of the New Right, that has governed Britain and the United States after the 2008 financial crisis, regarding globalization. The purpose of the essay is to identify the most prominent similarities and differences in the positions of the New Right on globalization in both countries after 2008. The essay shows that the New Right differs, in Britain and the United States, in its position on globalization. In Britain, successive Conservative governments support globalization with its economic, political, cultural and ecological dimensions, but with conditions. On the other hand, Trump, the only Republican president in the United States after 2008, does not support globalization in any of its dimensions. However, there are similarities between the two doctrines on issues related to the assertion of sovereignty and national identity.

This thesis is aimed at analysing key similarities and differences of the Englsih Defence League and the German-born social movement PEGIDA. Whereas both movements have a common goal, to stop the perceived Islamisation of their respective countries, and Europe as a whole, the means and methods vary greatly. Moreover, it is argued that the followership of said organisations differ in age, social background and motivation. Both organisations are able to exert a certain amount of influence on their supporters, the rest of the society, as well as policy- makers and the political elite. Both organisations have influenced the societal and political climate of their respective countries of origin and also in the countries in the European neighbourhood with links to individuals and organisations in North America.

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This essay will primarily focus on the 2016 US election, including its ideological, socioec-onomic and political circumstances. Evidently, this context relates to numerous ‘political disconnects,’ phenomena which are all too obvious in contemporary American culture and society. In this respect, the narrow victory of a TV celebrity, businessman, and right-wing nationalist, who now serves as the 45th President of the United States, can be seen as an apt expression of the ideological divisions by which American culture and politics have been marked for quite some time. Perhaps, then, liberal commentators and intellec-tuals should not have been all that surprised about the election’s outcome. For although former President Barack Obama was successful in getting reelected in 2012, his eight years in office also saw the rise of the Tea Party movement and a Republican Party which has increasingly drifted to the right. While this essay is certainly concerned with such po-litical divisions – divisions, that is, which separate ‘blue states’ from ‘red states,’ Demo-crats from Republicans, liberals from conservatives, and the so-called left from the new right – I prefer to concentrate on a different (but perhaps equally challenging) type of disconnect. What I mean is the disconnect between today’s left (or, more precisely, what I have termed the ‘cultural left’) and large segments of the American working and lower middle class. Here, regarding the 2016 election, I will analyze the Clinton campaign’s cu-rious inability to effectively articulate issues like class injustice and socioeconomic ine-quality. While this may seem to be mostly an ‘American’ issue, I am convinced that the class problem and the question of inequality go well beyond the US context and are in many ways related to the general upsurge of the new right, a phenomenon which can be observed in numerous European countries as well.

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The rise of the new right in U.S. Politics from 1994-1996 is examined as a process of asymmetrical communication and informational deployments of signs constructed to appeal to a conservative political subculture. Lash and Urry’s analysis of the economy of signs and space is employed to trace the flow of these signs as they are “emptied-out” and recombined in ways that legitimate the conservative, pro-business agenda, or contract with America, unveiled during The 1994 congressional election. A re-reading of these signs seeks to replace the individual as a subject in the role of reflexive agent in a process of modernization which rejects the reassertion of the new right’s design for a social structure of moral values which maintain the distribution of risk. These risks, as managed by environmental policy, are one target of the new right’s deregulatory agenda and as such form, the central political issue examined in this paper using Lash and Urry’s theory of reflexive modernization. / Master of Urban Affairs

The incarceration rate in the United States has increased dramatically in the period since 1945. How did the United States move from having stable incarceration rates in line with global norms to the largest system of incarceration in the world? This study examines the political and intellectual aspects of incarceration and theories of criminal justice by looking at the contributions of journalists, intellectuals and policy makers to the debate on whether the purpose of the justice system is rehabilitation, vengeance, deterrence or incapacitation. This thesis finds that justice and the institution of the prison itself are not immutable facts of modern civilization, but are human institutions vulnerable to the influence of politics, culture and current events.

The incarceration rate in the United States has increased dramatically in the period since 1945. How did the United States move from having stable incarceration rates in line with global norms to the largest system of incarceration in the world? This study examines the political and intellectual aspects of incarceration and theories of criminal justice by looking at the contributions of journalists, intellectuals and policy makers to the debate on whether the purpose of the justice system is rehabilitation, vengeance, deterrence or incapacitation. This thesis finds that justice and the institution of the prison itself are not immutable facts of modern civilization, but are human institutions vulnerable to the influence of politics, culture and current events.