The dissertation that follows is a result of nearly two years of Zoom interviews with self-identified conservatives and/or former Republicans. In light of the changes brought forth by Trump and the new Republican Party, each of these individuals find themselves without a party to call their own. Situated during the heart of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the 2020 election, it is the story of how Donald Trump hijacked the Republican Party, and the lasting consequences polarization has on democratic institutions such as the United States. By giving voice to those previously silenced by political extremism, I argue in favour of a direct approach to political action using the methods commonly found within Anthropology. In doing so, we give voice to the individual previously silenced by extremism on both ends of the political spectrum. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Collin, P. (2009) The Making of Good Citizens: Participation policies, the internet and youth political identities in Australia and the United Kingdom. PhD Thesis, University of Sydney. Abstract This thesis examines the relationship between youth participation policies, the internet and young people’s political participation. In recent times youth participation policies have become an increasingly popular solution to a range of perceived ‘issues’ related to young people: either problems of youth disengagement from democracy or their exclusion from democratic processes. At the same time, young people’s lives are increasingly mediated by information communication technologies: identity, social relationships, learning and cultural, political and economic practices are embedded in the internet and mobile usage. Consequently, the internet is being increasingly utilised to promote and implement the aims of these youth participation policies. Despite the need to understand the relationship between policy and practice, research rarely considers the relationship between policy, practice and young people’s views and experiences. This thesis addresses this gap in the literature by looking at what participation means in youth policy, in the practice of non-government organisations and for young people themselves. It engages directly with young people’s experiences and in doing so moves beyond questions of mobilisation and reinforcement. Instead it examines the diversity of ways in which young people conceptualise and practice participation, both online and offline. It also relates their views and actions to broader changes in governance and democracy and draws on contemporary theories of political identity and citizenship to make sense of the way that young people view, and exercise, citizenship. This study draws on original qualitative research generated in a comparative study of Australia and the United Kingdom. The experiences of young people in two national non-government organisations are studied and explored in relation to the policy discourses on youth and participation in each country setting. This study has drawn on participant observation, document analysis and in-depth interviews with twenty four young people and eight executive staff and board members across the two country settings. This thesis provides an in-depth account of how young people conceptualise and practice politics. In doing so, it argues, firstly, that the political identities of young people are shaped by dominant discourses of youth and participation and that youth participation policies are transforming the ways that young people conceptualise participation and engage in participatory activities. Although participation policies are often intended to connect young people to government policy making processes, young people remain cynical about the interest and ability of governments to recognise and respond to their views. They see governments and politicians as remote from their lives and the issues they cared about. Comparatively, they demonstrate a passionate commitment to causes, to personally defined acts incorporated in their everyday lives through local volunteering and contributing to national initiatives. Furthermore, these young people reject traditional hierarchies, show significant commitment to action over ideology and value the cultural and interpersonal dimensions of participation. They often conceptualise participation as everyday acts through networks that transcend traditional models of membership-based organisations, of state-oriented politics, of locally-based action and of formal and informal policy making processes. Secondly, young people use the Internet for a diverse range of participation activities. The internet facilitates activities which bring together the political, cultural, social and economic dimensions of young people’s lives. For instance, participatory activities, friendships, study, hobbies and consumer activities were often interwoven as young people discussed participation. However, the picture that emerged in this thesis is that the agency and autonomy that young people value in online participation contrasts starkly with government policies which favour structured, managed, prescribed processes for youth participation both on and offline. Thirdly, whilst participation policies have opened up new access points to policy-making from which young people have traditionally been excluded, they tend to legitimise managed forms of participation and de-legitimise others. Consequently, participation policies, in their present form, tend to exacerbate, rather than remedy problems of elitism and can further alienate young people from political elites. Furthermore, as discourses of participation are becoming more prevalent in the non-government sector, young people are increasingly oriented away from government towards other actors. This thesis finds that young people are becoming more, not less, alienated from formal politics as they find more resonance in non-government processes and feel more excluded from the processes of government.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Collin, P. (2009) The Making of Good Citizens: Participation policies, the internet and youth political identities in Australia and the United Kingdom. PhD Thesis, University of Sydney. Abstract This thesis examines the relationship between youth participation policies, the internet and young people’s political participation. In recent times youth participation policies have become an increasingly popular solution to a range of perceived ‘issues’ related to young people: either problems of youth disengagement from democracy or their exclusion from democratic processes. At the same time, young people’s lives are increasingly mediated by information communication technologies: identity, social relationships, learning and cultural, political and economic practices are embedded in the internet and mobile usage. Consequently, the internet is being increasingly utilised to promote and implement the aims of these youth participation policies. Despite the need to understand the relationship between policy and practice, research rarely considers the relationship between policy, practice and young people’s views and experiences. This thesis addresses this gap in the literature by looking at what participation means in youth policy, in the practice of non-government organisations and for young people themselves. It engages directly with young people’s experiences and in doing so moves beyond questions of mobilisation and reinforcement. Instead it examines the diversity of ways in which young people conceptualise and practice participation, both online and offline. It also relates their views and actions to broader changes in governance and democracy and draws on contemporary theories of political identity and citizenship to make sense of the way that young people view, and exercise, citizenship. This study draws on original qualitative research generated in a comparative study of Australia and the United Kingdom. The experiences of young people in two national non-government organisations are studied and explored in relation to the policy discourses on youth and participation in each country setting. This study has drawn on participant observation, document analysis and in-depth interviews with twenty four young people and eight executive staff and board members across the two country settings. This thesis provides an in-depth account of how young people conceptualise and practice politics. In doing so, it argues, firstly, that the political identities of young people are shaped by dominant discourses of youth and participation and that youth participation policies are transforming the ways that young people conceptualise participation and engage in participatory activities. Although participation policies are often intended to connect young people to government policy making processes, young people remain cynical about the interest and ability of governments to recognise and respond to their views. They see governments and politicians as remote from their lives and the issues they cared about. Comparatively, they demonstrate a passionate commitment to causes, to personally defined acts incorporated in their everyday lives through local volunteering and contributing to national initiatives. Furthermore, these young people reject traditional hierarchies, show significant commitment to action over ideology and value the cultural and interpersonal dimensions of participation. They often conceptualise participation as everyday acts through networks that transcend traditional models of membership-based organisations, of state-oriented politics, of locally-based action and of formal and informal policy making processes. Secondly, young people use the Internet for a diverse range of participation activities. The internet facilitates activities which bring together the political, cultural, social and economic dimensions of young people’s lives. For instance, participatory activities, friendships, study, hobbies and consumer activities were often interwoven as young people discussed participation. However, the picture that emerged in this thesis is that the agency and autonomy that young people value in online participation contrasts starkly with government policies which favour structured, managed, prescribed processes for youth participation both on and offline. Thirdly, whilst participation policies have opened up new access points to policy-making from which young people have traditionally been excluded, they tend to legitimise managed forms of participation and de-legitimise others. Consequently, participation policies, in their present form, tend to exacerbate, rather than remedy problems of elitism and can further alienate young people from political elites. Furthermore, as discourses of participation are becoming more prevalent in the non-government sector, young people are increasingly oriented away from government towards other actors. This thesis finds that young people are becoming more, not less, alienated from formal politics as they find more resonance in non-government processes and feel more excluded from the processes of government.

Kurdish political identity, their quest for recognition has been an everlasting issue in the Turkish politics since the establishment of Turkish Republic (1923). When the Republic was building by the Republican elite during the single-party regime, the Turkish identity and Mustafa Kemal’s principles became constituent elements of Republican agenda which was ideologically aimed to be a modern nation-state that showed no tolerance to those who stayed out of its scope (i.e Kurds). The frames of Turkish identity were firstly secularism, and secondly nationalism which required one language, one identity and territorial integrity. These frames which were copied from Jacobin French nationalism regulated the Turkification process and shaped the assimilationist policies towards non-Turkish ethnic groups. This paper examines the outlines of both Turkish politics and Kurdish resistance. While providing political consequences of reluctant policies toward Kurds and the Turkish perspective of Kurds as threats towards mainstream Turkish identity, the study also touches upon the ideological transition of Kurdish movement that appeared within the Justice and Development Party (AKP) reign. The evolution of Kurdish politics eventually utilized Kurds to emancipate from being a perception of threat to Turkish nationalism and finally offers a possible solution to the conflict.

This comparative study of the experiences of gay HIV positive men living in urban and rural areas explores the dynamic interrelationship between lived experience and service provision. The literature in this field has drawn on a familiar stereotype - the urban, sexually active, gay man. This man - and his community - does not exist in a rural environment in the way it is assumed nor does it necessarily fit the experience of gay men in London. By creating a link between the questions of subjectivity and the question of how we improve services, I argue that a mechanistic construction of need may follow an assumed urban model which may not hold for all men in an urban setting, nor for men in rural areas. Gay HIV positive men are faced with new psycho-social dilemmas in relation to the virus, including unpredictability of outcome, as well as the complexity and burden of the current treatment. They engage in a constant process of renegotiating their sense of themselves in space, time and relationships. Through the use of narrative methodology, my research builds a new perspective on the experience of these individuals which can help to shape the services and policies of the future. The stories of 21 gay HIV positive men were gathered and analysed in relation to five areas of focus: community/space, relationships, identity, health and services. Rural participants were less able to build and maintain a politically strong identity and rural services need to create strategies to enable gay men to draw on the strength of a collective voice. 'Doing for' services, prevalent in rural areas, may be appropriate for the very ill but can perpetuate a culture of helplessness. The healthist discourse adopted by London services promotes individualism and responsibility. Services for HIV positive men in all areas need to hold the dynamic between 'doing for' services for the sick and dying and a healthist discourse for those who can look to their future.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / In this dissertation, I problematize 'victim's justice' in post-genocide Rwanda. I argue that the kind of justice that was meted out in post-genocide Rwanda, namely victors' justice and complementary to it – victims’ justice, does not allow for the political reform required to break the cycle of violence in Rwanda. In the aftermath of the 1994-Rwandan Genocide, both state and society were faced with a moral and political dilemma, because the popular agency or mass participation of perpetrators derived from the Hutu majority, who targeted the Tutsi minority, with intent to annihilate them. There were massacres of both Hutus and Tutsis, but Hutus were targeted as individuals, whereas Tutsis were targeted as a group. It is the specific ‘intent to annihilate’ Tutsis as group, that makes this a Genocide against Tutsis. I draw and develop arguments made by Mahmood Mamdani, elaborating on the specific question of ‘victims justice’ for political reform in Rwanda. Both kinds of justice were outcomes of the logic of the Nuremburg Trials. Since its inception, the legacy of the Nuremburg Trial is demonstrated in how it was idealized at the end of the Cold-War by international law and human rights regime. In essence, the historical and political context of the Nuremburg trial has been removed, as it has been produced into a template- the 'Nuremburg-styled criminal trial'. 'Criminal justice' has come to define how we think of justice after mass violence, as the most morally acceptable form of justice for the victims, and the most politically viable response for constituting a 'new political order' after mass violence. This dissertation addresses the argument made, that victors' justice and victims' justice in Rwanda, has constituted two categories, which collectivise Tutsis as victims and Hutus as perpetrators. In the context of a genocide, where the perpetrators are derived from the Hutu majority and the victims from the Tutsi minority, this present both a moral and political dilemma for Rwanda’s state-building and national reconciliation project. Criminal justice also frames mass violence as being criminal, rather than addressing it as political violence. This has troubling consequences for intervening into the cycle of violence in Rwanda. The 'cycle of violence' in Rwanda, refers to the continuation of political violence, in which 'every round of perpetrators has justified the use of violence as the only effective guarantee against being victimised yet again. Thus, intervention into the cycle of violence would mean thinking out of the logic of victimhood and pursuing an alternative kind of justice. To think of the genocide as political violence, redirects the attention to the issues that made the genocide possible. I establish the importance and necessity of critically interrogating 'victims justice' in Rwanda, by placing the 1994-Genocide in its historical and political context, with a particular focus on the legacy of colonialism. The post-colonial regimes in Rwanda, inherited the colonial institutions of rule; and the politicisation of Hutu and Tutsi into racial categories, which have shaped particular meanings for power, justice and citizenship. I demonstrate in this dissertation that critical issues found in post-genocide Rwanda today, are symptomatic of the inherited colonial legacy. I address the prevailing political crisis through an analysis on post-genocide governance; national reconciliation; the 'land question'; and the Great Lakes refugee crisis. Furthermore, I found that it was critically important for my research question, to also adopt a regional perspective, because Rwanda lies at the epicentre of the Great Lakes regional crisis. This dissertation concludes with returning to the question of political reform, and breaking the 'cycle of violence'. My suggestion is that we need to think of Mamdani's concept of survivor's justice, rather than victims' justice or victors' justice, which assist in confronting the needs of political reform that address colonial legacies.

No description available.

Since the events of September 11, 2001, the threat of terrorism has gained ever more political salience, occupying a place at the top of the EU political agenda. In response to the perceived threat, the EU has developed a distinct approach to counter-terrorism, themed around what is called the "fight against terrorism‟. This approach is more than just a set of institutional or public policy responses designed to negate the threat of terrorism; it is also an influential political discourse which plays an important role in the construction of counter-terrorism policy and the legitimisation of counter-terrorism policy responses. This thesis uses critical discourse analysis to study the discursive construction of EU counter-terrorism policy. It uses representative extracts from twenty counter-terrorism documents prepared by/or for the EU institution the European Council, across a ten-year period from November 1999 to December 2009. The analysis identifies several strands of the "fight against terrorism‟ discourse, which it is argued are central to its constitution and that remain consistent across the period analysed. In the post-September 11 period, these strands of the counter-terrorism discourse play an important role in constructing an ubiquitous internal/external "terrorist‟ threat. These include: terrorism as a "criminal act‟; terrorism as an act perpetrated primarily by "non-state actors‟; terrorism as "new‟ and seeking to gain access to and/or use weapons of mass destruction; the threat of terrorism linked to an "open‟ or "globalised‟ geo-strategic environment, thus requiring measures of "control‟ at the EU border; and the threat of terrorism linked to "violent radicalisation‟ or "Islamist terrorism‟, emanating both internally ("home-grown terrorism‟) and externally to the EU. When these different strands are taken together they constitute the "fight against terrorism‟ discourse. It is argued that this discourse helps to construct the identity of the EU, whilst simultaneously the identity of the EU is central to the formulation of counter-terrorism policies. As such, the representations contained within the counter-terrorism discourse and counter-terrorism policy are considered to be mutually or co-constitutive. The main contention of the thesis therefore is that EU identity is constituted through the "fight against terrorism‟ discourse. Critical discourse analysis was chosen as a method through which to investigate EU counter-terrorism policy because it allows us to: map how the "fight against terrorism‟ discourse is constructed; to demonstrate how it provides a language for talking about terrorism; to understand how the discourse defines what is accepted knowledge about (who or what is) terrorism; and to reveal how that knowledge structures the counter-terrorism policy response as a "natural‟ or "common-sense‟ approach to the challenge of terrorism. This approach is novel in the sense that it is attentive to often neglected issues such as identity. In particular, it explores how the "fight against terrorism‟ discourse construct a "European‟ sense of Self in opposition to a "terrorist‟ Other. It investigates the extent to which the "fight against terrorism‟ discourse plays a role in the legitimisation of new security practices; as well as reflecting on the extent to which these practices are contributing to the blurring of the distinction between internal and external security policy. It also considers whether the discourse is reflective of a process of "securitisation‟ of social and political life within Europe.

Using data from a national survey of American adults, we examine the relationships between economic, political, sociodemographic, and religious characteristics with perception of the potential for eco-catastrophe. We employ the treadmill of production theory to frame our understanding of views about ecological concerns, arguing that the treadmill discourse associated with economic development is hegemonic and fundamentally shapes public views of eco-catastrophe. In line with this approach, economic ideology is the strongest predictor of attitudes about eco-catastrophe, and its influence is conditioned by political identity. There is also significant patterning in these perceptions based on gender, race, education, and religion, but the influence of social characteristics is primarily indirect—mediated by economic ideology and political identity. These results provide useful information for addressing environmental problems in public discourse and bridging policy divides.

This thesis is concerned with extrapolating some central issues of the so-called Kurdish Question in the Republic of Turkey by applying political anthropological theory and methodologies. It attempts to guage the political identities of five Kurdish University students and understand their perspectives on what constitutes and propogates Kurdish political discontents in the Republic. The following research questions have been addressed: How is Turkey&amp / #8223 / s Kurdish question (K&uuml / rt Meselesi) perceived and defined by Kurdish, post-graduate university students from a university in Ankara? How have individual experiences shaped the participants&amp / #8223 / political identities? What are the relevant macro-level factors informing their political identities and their perceptions of the Kurdish question? For the sample group studied, the Kurdish identity has been found to be a highly political and socially stigmatized identity in Turkey. According to the respondents, the Kurdish identity (both group and personal) and its political overtures have developed in an ongoing dialect with an everchanging official Turkish nationalist doctrine that is executed through a state outfit whose legitimacy is anchored largely in the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atat&uuml / rk. The Kurdish Question itself represents a broad range of issues. According to these university students, these issues are beginning to be addressed in line with attempts at political liberalisation and democratisation in the country that are a part of the EU-accession process as well as a product of developing education and an ever-enlightened population. Despite this, the respondents are hesitant to believe in positive political change for the Kurds in Turkey as much discussion of the &amp / #8222 / Kurdish Question&amp / #8223 / remains focused on the outlawed PKK and ongiing conflict in the South East of the country. Kurdish discontents may also be seen to present and call for the recognition of a historical narrative which is divergent from the official line of state, a narrative which remains highly taboo at state and society levels.