This thesis examines Bitzer's model of the rhetorical situation by using it, in combination with elements of Bormann's fantasy theme analysis to perform a criticism of radical right rhetoric. First, it identifies the exigencies that give rise to the sovereignty rhetoric employed by members of the radical right. This analysis then determines whether the speech meets the needs of its intended audience. To accomplish this task, two websites are analyzed: the Posse Comitatus/Christian Identity website and that of the Republic of Texas, a secessionist, common law/sovereign citizen's site. These websites claim to be the official websites of the two organizations. The analysis is a generative analysis, combining Bitzer's model of rhetorical situation with aspects of Bormann's fantasy theme analysis. Through performing the analysis, weaknesses and areas for improvement in Bitzer's model will be identified.Sovereignty and common law rhetoric comes in many variations, but all revolve around a central principle - that there are two classes of citizenship. United States citizenship is conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment and is accepted by participation in programs such as social security (Nagle, 1996). This form of citizenship is subject to extensive regulation and taxation. However, sovereignty rhetoric focuses on state citizenship. This type of citizenship is conferred by common law and can be recaptured by rejecting U.S. citizenship. Advocates of sovereignty argue that state citizens are not subject to most federal laws and cannot be taxed by the federal government.Why study common law/sovereign citizen rhetoric? There is broad crosspollination among extremist groups, and sovereignty rhetoric is a consistent theme for many of these groups (Shapiro, 1995). For example, individuals convicted of abortion bombings have had militia ties, and tax protestors attend preparedness expos' (Tharp & Holstein, 1997). Likewise, events such as the death of Randy Weaver's wife in the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff, and the 1993 Branch Davidian fire are cited by extremists of numerous ideologies as evidence of a government conspiracy (Dyer, 1997).2 Furthermore, for every camouflage-clothed militia member, there are several amateur attorneys studying old law books, the Constitution and each other's websites in an effort to unravel the meaning of the "true" Constitution (Abanes, 1996).The Posse Comitatus and Republic of Texas websites are useful artifacts because they are clear examples of the types of rhetoric addressed in this study. The present incarnation of the Posse Comitatus merges Posse Comitatus and Christian Identity rhetoric, allowing exploration of the common law rhetoric of both groups through one website. While claiming not to be a militia website, the Republic ofI Preparedness expos offer survivalist training and equipment, firearms, ammunition and common law materials (Tharp & Holstein).Extremists are particularly fascinated by the date April 19, a date on which events ranging from the Revolutionary War to the Branch Davidian fire took place (Stern). In some circles, this date is called Militia Day and has assumed almost religious significance.Texas maintains at least three separate militias and features extensive discussions of common law and sovereign citizen rhetoric.To understand these groups, it is necessary to understand the exigencies that brought them into existence. Bitzer's model of rhetorical situation, with its focus on exigencies, is an excellent tool for understanding the social and economic factors contributing to the growth of these types of groups. However, Bitzer offers only limited insight into how the messages are spread and why people accept them. Bormann's fantasy theme method of analysis helps answer the questions of how the sovereignty/common law message satisfies the rhetorical and psychological needs of the group members. / Department of Communication Studies

This study analyzes the relationship between political ideology, voting behavior and emotional responses after Peruvian presidential elections in 2011. Scales of intolerance for ambiguity, need for closure, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and the right-wing political orientation were used to assess right-wing political conservatism. A structural equation model proposes that intolerance of ambiguity and need for closure exert a direct effect on RWA. Also, RWA influences directly the right-wing political orientation, which exerts a direct influence on negative emotional responses and an inverse effect on positive emotional responses after O. Humala’s victory. Final discussion focuses on the contemporary relevance of left/right ideological continuum. / Este estudio analiza la relación entre la ideología política, el comportamiento electoral y las reacciones emocionales luego de las elecciones presidenciales de 2011 en una muestra de adultos de la ciudad de Lima. Se utilizaron escalas de intolerancia a la ambigüedad, necesidad de cierre cognitivo, autoritarismo de ala derecha (RWA) y orientación política de derecha. Un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales propone que la intolerancia a la ambigüedad y la necesidad de cierre cognitivo ejercen una influencia directa sobre el RWA, el mismo que influye positivamente sobre la orientación política de derecha, variable que finalmente influye sobre las reacciones emocionales luego de conocerse el triunfo del candidato Ollanta Humala. Se discute al final acerca de la vigencia contemporánea del continuo ideológico izquierda/derecha.

Utilizada para reprimir movimentos sociais e manter a ordem, a polícia é tradicionalmente identificada com os interesses da direita. No Brasil, a criação da Polícia Militar no contexto político da ditadura civil-militar instaurada no país em 1964 facilita essa associação. No entanto, se por um lado policiais militares tendem a se aliar politicamente a setores da população que se opõem a instrumentos de responsabilização da polícia, encarados como fatores que dificultam o trabalho policial, por outro, são servidores públicos que reivindicam melhores condições de trabalho, o que abre a possibilidade para que se aproximem da esquerda ou pelo menos se distanciem da direita neoliberal. Alguns dos candidatos a deputado estadual mais votados em São Paulo são oriundos da Polícia Militar. O presente trabalho almeja investigar se os deputados da Assembleia Legislativa do Estado de São Paulo oriundos da Polícia Militar, das 14ª, 15ª e 16ª legislaturas (1999-2011), são responsivos ao eleitorado de direita; se adotam pontos de vista homogêneos sobre diversos temas (militarização da polícia, corrupção policial, missão da Polícia Militar, policiamento comunitário, ditadura, política criminal, movimentos sociais etc.); e como exercem a defesa dos interesses da Polícia Militar, uma corporação marcada por inúmeros conflitos internos, principalmente entre praças e oficiais. Para tanto, pesquisou-se em que zonas eleitorais esses deputados são proporcionalmente mais votados; problematizou-se a associação entre sensação de insegurança, defesa de bandeiras repressivas, percepção da corrupção e o voto em candidatos e partidos de direita; identificaram-se seus projetos de lei; compararam-se suas votações em plenário na 16ª legislatura (2007-2011); analisaram-se seus discursos na tribuna da ALESP, que foram contrastados com pesquisas de opinião pública, pesquisas de opinião de policiais militares e literatura sobre subculturas policiais. Da mesma forma, o trabalho discute as possíveis razões que levam policiais militares a se candidatarem a uma vaga no Poder Legislativo estadual. / The police are used to repress social movements and to keep the order, and are traditionally identified with the right wing interests. In Brazil, the Military Police was created within the political context of the civil/military dictatorship established in 1964 and eases such association; however, if on one hand military policemen tend to politically ally themselves with the population sectors contrary to instruments that hold the police liable, faced as factors making police work more difficult, on the other hand, military policemen are public servants claiming for better work conditions, and there is the possibility of they getting nearer to the left wing, or at least distancing themselves from the neoliberal right wing. Some candidates for deputies of the House of São Paulo State Legislative derive from the Military Police. The aim of this work is to investigate whether the deputies of the House of Representatives of the State of São Paulo from the Military Police, in the 14th, 15th and 16th legislatures (1999-2011), are responsive to the right wing electors, if they adopt similar viewpoints on several themes (police militarization, police corruption, Military Polices mission, community policing, dictatorship, criminal policy, social movements, etc.), and how they defend the Military Polices interests, a corporation marked by uncountable internal conflicts, mainly among police force and officers. For such purpose, the following issues were addressed: research about in which electoral zones those deputies are proportionally more voted; where one can see the connection among feeling of insecurity, defense of repressive flags, perception of corruption and voting in right wing candidates and parties; identification of their bills of law; their votes in plenary sessions in the 16th legislature (2007-2011) are compared; their speeches at ALESPs tribune are analyzed and contrasted with public opinion polls, opinion polls with military policemen and the literature on police subcultures. Likewise, the work discusses the possible reasons for military policemen running for an office in the State Legislative.

Master's thesis describes the development and operations of The Party of Free Citizens. The thesis includes a series of terms, without which party is impossible to categorize. These terms include: liberalism, classical liberalism, libertarianism, capitalism, right-wing, euroscepticism. Thesis also includes analysis of the organizational structure, constitutional documents and political program of The Party of Free Citizens. Last but not least thesis includes summary of election results of The Party of Free Citizens. The aim of master's thesis is to describe the meaning and background of The Party of Free Citizens. To process master's thesis were used internet sources, primarily website of The Party of Free Citizens. In thesis were also used dictionaries, professional political science publications and essayistic literature type.

This case study aims to explore the social sustainability in a middle-sized city with extreme-right wing presence. The chosen middle-sized city had the Nordic Resistance Movement, an extreme and violent organisation with Nazi-ideology, in the local government election period 2014-2018. Even though the Nordic Resistance Movement is not in the local government, currently they still have social influence in the city. Schools in the middle-sized city have been under extra pressure due to propaganda on school areas and recruitment efforts. The Swedish government specifically target youth in relation to extremism because youth and children are considered a risk group for all forms of extremism. A selected group of youth, forty in total, in the middle-sized city answered an attitude survey, and four of them answered semi-structured interviews to give a deeper understanding of the survey answers. The results from the survey and interviews show that the youth had strong opinions on the presence of the Nordic Resistance Movement in their hometown. A majority of the youth perceived that Nordic Resistance Movement was present and made contact attempts in town, on social media and with graffiti and pamphlets. Furthermore, the youth responded that they wanted harder actions towards extreme-right wing organisations from the school, media, police and the justice system. Finally, the youth answered that adults around them could be both with and against the Nordic Resistance Movement, the same with the respondents themselves, indicating a polarised civil society. As for the future, the youth answered that they believe that the Nordic Resistance Movement will increase in the future, and they wanted harder regulations from the government to hinder an increase of the Nordic Resistance Movement. The social sustainability in the middle-sized city is not lost according to the youths, it can be sustainable with the help of governmental support.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the constructed vision of social reality that the Sweden Democrats define and thus defend and legitimizes through their climate and environmental policy. With a focus on the power relations that are constitutive of the Sweden Democrats' definition of social reality, the intention is to clarify the Sweden Democrats' position on the issue of climate change and to make visible what underlies their actions concerning the ratification of the Paris Agreement. To achieve the purpose, critical discourse analysis is used as a method where political documents concerning the Sweden Democrats' climate, environment, and energy policy during the period 2018-2021 constitute the empirical material. The results show that the Sweden Democrats' definition of climate change is both ambiguous and ambivalent, where Sweden's self-image and Swedish interests are prioritized over climate measures. The result also shows that the Sweden Democrats' definition of climate change is constituted by underlying power relations to preserve the power of the nation-state and the subordinate position of developing countries. One conclusion that can be drawn is to reduce the Sweden Democrats to just being climate change deniers is to simplify because their attitude to climate change is characterized by ambivalence and self-interest rather than skepticism and denial. Another conclusion is that the Sweden Democrats' attitude to climate change is more about defending and preserving existing power relations and less about questioning the existence of climate change. A third conclusion that can be drawn is that the Sweden Democrats' action regarding the Paris Agreement is more about opposing a social change that entails increased equality and about legitimizing the nation state's continued relevance in a globalized world, and less about opposing the content and implementation of the Paris Agreement.

This thesis investigates how a change in the municipal asylum seeker share affects voting for the Sweden Democrats (SD), a far-right anti-immigration party, in both national Parliament and Municipal Council elections in Sweden. To circumvent the endogeneity problem, I use an instrumental variables strategy where the share of available apartments in Allmännyttan is used as an instrument for the municipal share of asylum seekers living in Migration Agency provided accommodation (ABO). I have exploited municipal level panel data on municipality characteristics, allocations of asylum seekers and national elections. I am not able to find support for any effect of a change in the municipal share of asylum seekers on voting for the Sweden Democrats. Consequently, I cannot provide any support for either the group position theory or the contact hypothesis.

In 2018, the Sweden Democrats party has gained 17.5 per cent of the votes during the Swedish general elections. Consequently, with this success, they became the third largest party in the riksdag. However, the party’s rapid growth has created several questions in the political arena and the Swedish society about the party’s ideological affiliations and evolutions. The political scientists, Mudde (2010) and Widfeldt (2008) argue that in order to understand a party’s improvements, it is important to explore a party’s ideological evolution. Scholars have argued that Sweden Democrats have normalized their ideas and values; adopted liberal values in some policy areas in order to attract a large number of voters, succeed and survive in the political system. The aim of this study is to explore the party’s idea/ideology changes since its creation in 1988 until present 2019. Hence, the main purpose is to find out if the core ideologies of the Sweden Democrats - that is nativism, authoritarianism and populism- as expressed in their party programs respectively electoral manifestos, are characterized by continuity or by normalization, and adaptation to liberal values. Using Marie Demker’s (1993) concept of ideology, ideal types for radical right populism and liberalism have been constructed as analytical tool. The study shows that throughout the years, the party’s nativist world view and strategy have been changed and normalized, the authoritarian world view has mainly been constant but the strategy has had major changes; shifted to liberal values, and finally regarding populism; both world view and strategy are characterized by continuity.

Contemporary social and political discourses often emphasise the security threat of Jihadism towards Europe and the United States as the main terrorist threat. Two decades into the twenty-first century, however, the new threat of right-wing terrorism has emerged as the statistically most prominent form of terror. As these attacks are predominantly carried out through so-called lone wolf tactics, it becomes essential to understand how these actors operate. While there is a growing amount of empirical literature that seeks to understand this phenomenon of lone-wolf terrorism, many follow similar frameworks with explanatory models which are dependent on assumptions and common truisms, such as that lone wolves are loners with depressive personality disorders who are cultivated in a vacuum independent from social ties. This study instead explores group psycho-historical factors through the theoretical framework of Symbolic Convergence Theory, which is applied through discourse analysis. The research thus aims to identify group fantasies and grand narratives which ties these lone wolves to a community on which they depend upon in radicalisation and subsequently, in carrying out the attacks. The findings consequently suggest that the typology of lone wolf terrorism is misleading as the subjects indicate a group consciousness with a cohesiveness which grows stronger as they increasingly interpret a growing danger towards their community dependent on commonly recurring fantasies and narratives.

This diploma thesis analyzes the coalition ties that have been established within the anti- Islamic scene in the Czech Republic. The analysis includes the most important counter- Islamic entities in the Czech Republic, namely the National Democracy, the Workers' Party of Social Justice, Dusk and its followers, and the Bloc against Islam and its followers. The theoretical basis of the thesis is the theory of coalitions. The aim of the thesis is to answer the questions why the anti-Islamic subjects of the coalition or other forms of co-operation follow up and why they do not follow them, even if they are offered because of their situation. Another aim of the thesis is to point out the possibility of using part of the theoretical approaches of the theory of coalition with certain modifications to the specific environment of the anti-Islamic scene in the Czech Republic, which is quite different from the national environment, for which the concepts of coalition theory were predominantly created. The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part introduces theoretical concepts and approaches that have been used in the work. The second, empirical, part presents the development of individual subjects and, above all, the established coalition ties and cooperation. The last chapter summarizes the...