This dissertation discusses the history of the politics of abortion in Argentina from the standpoint of democratic constitutionalism. It describes the normative world in which a legal rule criminalizing women who interrupted their pregnancies emerged in 1921, and the slow process through which the rule was re-politicized. The dissertation makes a contribution to the theory of democratic constitutionalism, by highlighting its usefulness for comparative analyses because it is based on common and usual features of democratic societies. It also contributes to the history of abortion regulation in Argentina, by underscoring the life of the law outside courts. Based on social movement theory, the dissertation contributes to the literature that finds that individuals play a very meaningful role in processes of legal and constitutional change.

Between 2016 and 2023 the Brazilian Ministry of Culture (MinC) was abolished and reinstated twice. This dissertation explores how disputes about the nature of democracy in Brazil have coalesced around ‘culture’ over recent years by examining a set of progressive cultural policies that have been implemented since 2004 in the context of the first Workers’ Party administration under Gilberto Gil as the Minister of Culture. Amongst these policies is the program Pontos de Cultura which marked the first time the Brazilian state took measures to actively secure the cultural rights of historically marginalized sectors of the population. The focus on securing and actualizing rights explicitly locates the program within the horizon of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, also referred to as the Citizen Constitution, which extended a set of socioeconomic rights to actors who had not have these guaranteed previously. Aimed at grassroots institutions engaging in some form of cultural activity (ranging from community memory projects to theatre troupes and blocos de carnaval), Pontos de Cultura offered financial support to selected initiatives and designated them as pontos de cultura (‘cultural points’). By 2012, several thousands of such pontos existed all over Brazil. Based on 22 months of ethnographic fieldwork and archival research between 2015 and 2019 at pontos de cultura in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro (including the municipalities of the Baixada Fluminense, the neighboring city of Niterói and the countryside of the state) as well as amongst policy makers and administrators, this dissertation analyzes the singular dynamic which the program developed in the urban peripheries in the state of Rio de Janeiro and the forms of political imagination it has given rise to. The policies under study explicitly proposed a critical engagement with existing concepts of ‘culture’ in Brazil. By tracing the different connotations that ‘culture’ has acquired over time and in relation to different political moments, the dissertation demonstrates how the conceptual associations between culture and the nation, culture and the state as well as culture and democracy in Brazil have made cultural policy a potent catalyst for novel ways in which actors from the urban peripheries articulate claims to the state, as well as a central site of dispute about the moral future of the country.

No / Dependent Communities investigates the political situations in contemporary Cambodia and East Timor, where powerful international donors intervened following deadly civil conflicts. This comparative analysis critiques international policies that focus on rebuilding state institutions to accommodate the global market. In addition, it explores the dilemmas of politicians in Cambodia and East Timor who struggle to satisfy both wealthy foreign benefactors and constituents at home-groups whose interests frequently conflict. Hughes argues that the policies of Western aid organizations tend to stifle active political engagement by the citizens of countries that have been torn apart by war. The neoliberal ideology promulgated by United Nations administrations and other international NGOs advocates state sovereignty, but in fact "sovereignty" is too flimsy a foundation for effective modern democratic politics. The result is an oppressive peace that tends to rob survivors and former resistance fighters of their agency and aspirations for genuine postwar independence. In her study of these two cases, Hughes demonstrates that the clientelist strategies of Hun Sen, Cambodia's postwar leader, have created a shadow network of elites and their followers that has been comparatively effective in serving the country's villages, even though so often coercive and corrupt. East Timor's postwar leaders, on the other hand, have alienated voters by attempting to follow the guidelines of the donors closely and ignoring the immediate needs and voices of the people. Dependent Communities offers a searing analysis of contemporary international aid strategies based on the author's years of fieldwork in Cambodia and East Timor.

Why is authoritarian propaganda often uninspiring, and how can states create captivating content that competes in the modern information landscape? This dissertation theorizes that dictators must strike a balance between controlling the creative process of cultural elites to promote a specific ideology and unleashing their creative potential. Overbearing ideological constraints can suppress creativity, thus necessitating powerful incentives to produce engaging propaganda. This research empirically focuses on the resurgence of propaganda films in Chinese cinemas from the mid- to late-2010s, particularly following the 2018 administrative reform when the Central Propaganda Department assumed control of the film industry. This serves as a case study demonstrating how an authoritarian state can make propaganda interesting. Utilizing novel film industry data and qualitative fieldwork, I uncover a state propaganda strategy that effectively shapes popular culture in China. I show that the Chinese government has successfully enlisted the cultural expertise of the private sector to craft entertaining and marketable propaganda through direct mandates and through shaping a market environment favorable to propaganda. Additionally, I conducted an online field experiment that demonstrates that such propagandist entertainment likely sways the majority of viewers' opinions toward the regime. However, it is worth noting that these propaganda movies may backfire among a small portion of the audience — approximately 20% of participants — who already harbor a distaste for propaganda before watching the movie. The production and reception of propagandist entertainment beyond the film industry and outside China are also discussed in this dissertation.

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Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since feminist approaches to international relations (IR) first made their appearance in the late 1980s, efforts to explain the 'gender gap' have proliferated. Gender studies within IR in particular have been focused on foreign policy opinion, seeking to discover whether men and women have different views on foreign policy simply due to the fact that they are of different genders. The correlate of this is that if women believe differently than men, in which way do they believe differently and if this were then taken to its logical end, what would happen if they were more equally responsible for foreign policy decision-making? As an illustration of the varying approaches to feminist IR, this research project undertakes a brief overview of the history of feminist IR, showing how the tools and language of traditional IR do not encompass the needs of feminist IR study. The research article then reviews the literature of gender, feminism and foreign policy beliefs and behavior, examining its research core and evolution to date. Three research questions are covered. Firstly, is gender a relevant variable in foreign policy analysis? Secondly, if yes, does it make a difference to the foreign policy beliefs of women? Thirdly, where women play a significant role in foreign policy decisionmaking, are countries more pacific on the international level? Dealt with separately, foreign policy beliefs are found to have a clear gender-based breakdown. Foreign policy behavior is less simple to approach since the dataset of countries led by women during international disputes is limited. The research project and literature review also looks forward, pointing toward the future, not only of gender and foreign policy studies but also to the implications that future developments in feminist IR may have for the study of IR. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Pogings om die geslagsgaping te verduidelik het vermenigvuldig sedert die feministiese benadering tot Internasionale Verhoudinge die eerste keer in die laat 1980's sy verskyning gemaak het. Geslagstudies binne Internasionale Verhoudinge het veral gefokus op opinies oor buitelandse beleid om sodoende vas te stelof mans en vroue verskillende sienings oor buitelandse beleid huldig bloot as gevolg van die feit dat hulle verskillende geslagte is. Die keersy hiervan is dat indien vroue anders glo as mans, op watter manier hulle anders glo, en - indien dit dan tot 'n logiese uiteinde gevoer word - wat sou gebeur indien daar meer gelyke verantwoordelikheid vir buitelandse beleidsbesluite sou wees. As 'n illustrasie van die verskillende benaderings tot feministiese Internasionale Verhoudinge, onderneem hierdie navorsingsprojek 'n oorsig van die geskiedenis van feministiese Internasionale Verhoudinge om sodoende te toon dat die gereedskap en taal van tradisionele Internasionale Verhoudinge nie aan die behoeftes van feministiese Internasionale Verhoudingstudies voldoen nie. Hierdie navorsingsartikel gee dan 'n oorsig oor geslagsliteratuur, feminisme en buitelandse beleidsopinies en -gedrag deur sy navorsingskern en evolusie tot datum te ondersoek. Drie navorsingsvrae word behandel. Eerstens, is geslag 'n relevante veranderlike in buitelandse beleidsanalise? Tweedends, indien ja, veranderdit die buitelandse beleidsopinies van vroue? Derdens, is lande meer passief op internasionale vlak waar vroue 'n wesentlike rol in buitelandse beleidsbesluitneming speel? Afsonderlik beskou, is daar gevind dat daar 'n duidelike geslagsonderskeid in buitelandse beleidsopinies is. Dis egter minder eenvoudig om buitelandse beleidsgedrag te bestudeer, aangesien slegs beperkte inligting oor lande wat gedurende internasionale dispute deur vroue beheer is beskikbaar is. Die navorsingsprojek en literatuuroorsig kyk ook vorentoe met spesifieke verwysing na die toekoms van nie net geslag en buitelandse beleidstudies nie, maar ook na die implikasies wat toekomstige verwikkelinge In feministiese Internasionale Verhoudinge 'n vir die studie van tradisionele Internasionale Verhoudinge kan hê.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis examines the development of Sinn Féin's communication strategies and considers how news coverage of the party has evolved in recent years, and in particular with the advent of the Irish peace process from the mid-1990s onwards. The aim of the research presented here is to establish the relationship between the development of the party's professional communication apparatus and the evolution of its news coverage and to determine the extent to which the emergence of a sophisticated approach to communication has impacted upon media coverage. The thesis argues that the development and implementation of the party's professional communication apparatus has been the result of a much wider process of republican reappraisal that took place during the 1980s. This culminated in the 1990s with the transformation of the republican movement into a more constitutional and negotiation-oriented party, while progressively moving away from the armed struggle as a means to achieve Irish re-unification. Moreover, in emphasising that there has been a considerable improvement in the reporting of Sinn Féin; namely that the news media have become progressively more interested in republican predicaments, less biased and more critical of unionism, it also suggests that the improved media coverage must be seen as a result of the political re-alignment of the movement itself. Ultimately, the main argument of this thesis is that we are now witnessing a new phase of the republican movement and, by proxy, of Northern Irish politics and its coverage in the media. This has meant that Sinn Féin has become more wiling to reach a political compromise and to find a peaceful solution to the conflct, and has attempted to affirm itself as a party with political and social interests, other than Irish re-unification. This has also forced the British government to reappraise its own view of the conflict and of Sinn Féin, recognising above all that the party and Northern Irish politics have evolved from a situation of war to one where it is dominated by careful and sensitive diplomacy. The result is that most of the common assumptions held about Sinn Féin including those of some academics, its political communication and its news coverage, must now be reconsidered in light of the radical transformations that have taken place.