This investigation aims to explore the motivating factors behind the decision to engage in informal self-employment within ethnic economies. Through a series of semistructured qualitative interviews with Latin American immigrant women participating in informal self-employment in Stockholm, this study focuses on the ways in which agency and structure can influence economic decisions. Using the theory of mixedembeddedness, the results show that participating in informal self-employment can be understood as both a product of capitalizing on available social and ethnic resources, as well as the outcome of limited opportunities in traditional labour markets. While social and ethnic networks facilitate informal exchanges and provide an environment in which alternative employment opportunities become available, the decision to start an informal enterprise correlates with a lack of other opportunities, due to factors such as discrimination, a lack of language skills, limited access to start-up capital and a complex institutional context for small-scale entrepreneurs.

Sveriges yngsta riksdagsparti Sverigedemokraterna har mött motstånd i form av demonstrationer. En form av motstånd vilket historiskt sett varit ovanligt i landet. Studien kartlägger hur dessa demonstrationer har tagit uttryck över en tioårsperiod, med syfte att se motrörelsens aktivitet och vilka taktiker som föredragits. Tidigare forskning på området pekade på att en motrörelses aktivitet ökar tillfälligt efter en förlust, för att sedan minska om inga framsteg görs över tid. Demonstranterna antogs också tillämpa mer drastiska taktiker i takt med att partiet når framgångar vid valen. Resultaten av studien visar att detta inte skett, våld har inte ökat. Istället blev användandet av ljud som civil olydnad mer vanligt mot slutet av protestcykeln. Efter ett antal motgångar där aktiviteten ökat successivt, minskade den sedan hastigt. Då tidigare forskning främst fokuserat på rörelser i andra stater, kan svensk politisk kultur samt SD och rörelser mot SD vara av annan karaktär, och därmed ge upphov till ett annat resultat.

This essay is about the mobilization that have arisen due to the mining activities being planned in Norra Kärr, just outside of Gränna in the northern part of the county of Jönköping, Sweden. This study is based on the association Aktion Rädda Vättern and members of the associatons’ individual thoughts and experiences of their possibility to success. Interviews were carried out with members of the association. The theoretical basis lies within the theory of political opportunity structure and the defintion of the same by Sidney Tarrow. According to Tarrow one of the motivating factors playing an important role for people to mobilize is their individual sense of success and the possibility to reach it. Important factors for the mobilization of people consists of both social and individual such as networks, social ties, the perception of the group in the surrounding area and by bystanders, but also by individual feelings. As shown in the essay people’s feelings of opportunity to achieve success is important, so is their feeling of belonging.

Entrepreneurship is often perceived as a crucial component of economic growth and social development. Studies into entrepreneurship inform policy design, thus the diverse understanding of entrepreneurship among scholars can create confusion in policy design. The current state of the field of entrepreneurial research is examined in order to identify the need for a universal definition of entrepreneurship. After a synthesis and analysis of prior research is conducted to identify the various links in perspectives, a new definition and framework is suggested. The resulting framework sees entrepreneurship as an autocatalytic process of creation of meaning and the consequent retention of said meaning in the structure of a new venture. The elements of this framework (autocatalytic process, creation of meaning, and retention in structure) can be assigned varying degrees of importance corresponding to differing perspectives, while simultaneously ensuring the presence of each element. The developed framework can be used to better inform the decisions of scholars and policy makers, due to the uncovering of the complex relationships between society, individuals and firms.

Agency, a behavioral and psychological concept, is an individual’s sense of what they can do and what they think they can do. It is imperative to understand how a sense of agency in youths can be fostered and transformed into constructive action. This study builds on previous research to better identify predictors of agency, focusing on social and political involvement and opportunity structure. Additionally, it analyzes and proposes the use of a new measure of agency, the Community Leadership (CL) scale. Eighty-five teens (ages 13 to 18) were administered surveys. Involvement was found to be significantly related to agency. It was also related to opportunity structure, but opportunity structure was not significantly related to agency. Opportunity structure seems to partly influence the relationship between involvement and agency. When compared to previously validated measures of agency, the CL scale proved to be a shorter and psychometrically sound alternative measure.

In August 2019 the indigenous social movement Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), decided to deepen their autonomy project and thereby to intensify their conflict with the Mexican state. The group that emerged in 1994 has for almost three decades been in conflict with the Mexican government. In the last decade, the conflict has been on hold until the group announced their expansion with 11 new autonomous zones in the south of the county. This thesis puts that decision in a political opportunity structure framework; what aspects of the framework can explain the unexpected decision by the movement? A qualitative text analysis of EZLN communique's finds that the movement took advantages of several political opportunities. Most significantly, the construction of the Mayan Train constituted reasons for adopting a confrontational strategy towards the government. Changes in the level of repression towards the movement have facilitated the confrontative decision made by the movement. When controlling for two alternative explanation theories, this study establishes the political opportunity structure as having a stronger explanation factor. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature on political opportunity framework and to revitalize the interest in the EZLN.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地球環境学) / 甲第23559号 / 地環博第216号 / 新制||地環||41(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院地球環境学舎地球環境学専攻 / (主査)教授 宇佐美 誠, 教授 諸富 徹, 准教授 TRENCHER Gregory / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Global Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DGAM

Research on social movements has traditionally addressed issues of movement emergence and mobilisation, paying little attention to their outcomes and consequences. Moreover, despite research on the political consequences of social movements accelerating in recent years, much has been left under researched, no more so than the impact social movements have on one of the most important actors in liberal democracies: political parties. This paper extends social movement research by examining whether social movements have an impact on political parties and under what conditions impact is more likely to take place. The empirical analysis, investigating whether anti-austerity social movements have had an impact on social democratic parties in Ireland and Spain during the years 2011 to 2016, suggests that the relationship between social movements and political parties is both under-theorised and under-researched, and mistakenly so. The paper finds that while parties are more likely to be influenced by social movements when certain conditions are present, social movements can also have unintended impacts on parties. Ultimately, this paper encourages research on political parties, and particularly research on party change, to pay greater attention to social movements and for social movement research to pay greater attention to political parties.

Cette thèse a pour objectif d'analyser l'émergence, la réussite et l'opposition au régime de deux mouvements sociaux égyptiens durant la période (2006-2009). Ces derniers sont le mouvement ouvrier de la Compagnie de Méhalla et celui des fonctionnaires de l'impôt foncier. On mettra en évidence deux questions, d'une part, les enjeux concernant les dynamiques internes propres au mouvement et d'autre part, ceux de son conflit avec le régime et le défi qu'il (le mouvement) représente pour lui (le régime). Notre argumentation se basera essentiellement sur l'importance des choix des leaders, leurs positions et les stratégies, puisqu'on les considère comme une variable explicative particulièrement importante pour la compréhension des dynamiques interactionnelles et oppositionnelles du mouvement. Nous espérons ainsi contribuer à la littérature portant sur les mouvements sociaux en proposant une analyse qui jettera la lumière sur l'influence qu'exercent les actions des leaders sur les dynamiques qu'engendre le mouvement, un fait qui a été d'ailleurs sous-étudié par cette littérature. En outre, notre recherche, on le pense, peut intéresser également les spécialistes des régimes autoritaires puisqu'on traitera aussi le processus selon lequel les leaders d'un mouvement peuvent exploiter au maximum les « opportunités » politiques qu'offre un régime semi-autoritaire et induire un changement des rapports qui le liaient auparavant à ce régime, ainsi que les limites d'un tel processus. / This thesis aims to emphasize the emergence, success and opposition to the regime of two Egyptian social movements during the period (2005-2009). These are the Mahalla Company for Spinning and Weaving labor movement and the Real Estate Tax collectors movement. In this research, we will shed the light on the internal dynamic taking place within the movement as well as its contentious interaction with the regime contenders. Our arguments will be based primarily on the role, choices and strategies of leaders as we consider them as an important explanatory variable for understanding the movement's interactional and oppositional dynamics. Hence, we hope to contribute to the literature on social movements by offering an analysis that will shed light on the influence leaders' actions on the movement's dynamics, a fact that is under-studied. Furthermore, our research, we believe, may also be of interest to specialists' of authoritarian regimes as we will describe the process by which the movements' leaders can capitalize on the “opportunities” offered by a semi- authoritarian regime to produce an historical rupture with the relationship that tied it to the later as well as our assessment of such a process' limitations.

The purpose of this study is to explore high school students’ understandings of achievement and opportunity through their lived experiences which are constructed under a high-stakes testing environment in Korea. This study undertakes a critical analysis of high-stakes testing and its intersectional effects in terms of structure and culture, attending to students’ everyday experiences in testing practices as these are embedded in certain discourses. Recent scholarship reveals that high-stakes testing reinforces a correspondence between socioeconomic status and educational attainment under the neoliberal educational policies of school choice, privatization, and high-stakes testing. In the analysis of educational policies such as the accountability movement, some studies contend that the political and economic discourses underpinning high-stakes testing are effectively hidden behind educational practices ostensibly aimed at raising standards. To date, however, there has been little attention to how students internalize the logic of neoliberal competition and how they experience educational achievement and opportunity structure within a high-stakes testing environment. Drawing on in-depth interviews of high school students from varying economic and academic backgrounds, this study found that students’ experiences of the high-stakes testing environment are influenced by their social class and achievement levels. High-stakes testing does not contribute to reducing achievement gaps between classes but rather reinforces educational alienation as well as opportunity gaps. Furthermore, high-stakes testing, as a cultural practice which affects students’ daily lives and their experience of curriculum and instruction, contributes to the ideological construction of students’ understandings of achievement and opportunity structure. While students experience structural constraints in achievement, they believe in testing as being a fair and equal opportunity. Concealing students’ struggles within structural barriers as well as their contradictory experiences in relation to ideologies of achievement and success, high-stakes testing becomes the medium through which students’ social desires are reproduced. An intersectional analysis in terms of culture and structure of students’ experiences in relation to high-stakes testing can help us to understand how the achievement ideology responds to students’ aspirations and also how those aspirations help this ideology persist. This study urges educational policies to focus on opportunity gaps and to look at contradictions and struggles that students experience in high-stakes testing. / text