Under påsken år 2022 eskalerade ett antal allmänna sammankomster på olika platser i Sverige till våldsamma upplopp med allvarliga konsekvenser. Händelserna har fått stor medial uppmärksamhet och en av städerna där upploppen skedde var Örebro. Forskning har visat att polisens arbete spelar en avgörande roll för uppkomst samt utveckling av upplopp och är därmed av intresse att studera. Föreliggande kvalitativa studie har syftat till att undersöka polisers upplevelser och erfarenheter av de arbetsmetoder som verksamheten använde under påskupploppet i Örebro, där ett stort fokus har lagts på den särskilda polistaktiken. Detta har uppnåtts genom fem semistrukturerade intervjuer med poliser som var inblandade i och/eller har goda kunskaper om arbetet med påskupploppet i Örebro. Ett teoretiskt ramverk användes som stöd vid analys av det insamlade materialet. Detta bestod av Flashpointmodellen (Flashpoints model of public disorder) och Newburns relativt nya förklaringsmodell för upplopp (The life cycle model for the analysis of riots). Av resultatet framgick en gemensam upplevelse av svårigheter att förbereda sig inför påskupploppet, som främst berodde på att händelsen var oförutsägbar och att tiden till förberedelser var bristande. Den särskilda polistaktiken som metod under upplopp upplevs av respondenterna som god, men implementeringen av denna brast. Detta var en följd av resurs- och kompetensbrist, men även fysiska förutsättningar på plats. Efter händelsen har ett omfattande utvecklingsarbete genomförts och metoden är idag fullt implementerad i region Bergslagen. Resultaten av studien förhåller sig väl till tidigare forskning och det teoretiska ramverket. / During Easter in 2022, a number of public gatherings in various locations in Sweden escalated into violent riots with serious consequences. The events have received a lot of attention in the media and Örebro was one of the cities where the riots took place. Research has shown that the work of the police plays a crucial role in the occurrence and development of riots and is therefore of interest to study. The current qualitative study has aimed to investigate police officers' experiences of the working methods that the authority used during the Easter riot in Örebro, where a large focus has been placed on the Special Police Tactics. This has been achieved through five semi-structured interviews with police officers who were involved in and/or have good knowledge of the work with the Easter riot in Örebro. A theoretical framework was used to support the analysis of the collected material. This consisted of the Flashpoint model of public disorder and Newburn's relatively new explanation model for riots (The life cycle model for the analysis of riots). The results revealed a common experience of difficulties in preparing for the Easter riot, which was mainly due to the fact that the event was unpredictable and that the time for preparation was insufficient. The Special Police Tactics as a method during riots are perceived by the respondents as good, but the implementation of this failed. This was a consequence of a lack of resources and skills, but also physical conditions on site. After the incident, extensive work with developmenting the working method was carried out, and the method is today fully implemented in the Bergslagen region. The results of the study relates well to previous research and the theoretical framework.

A holistic arms control (HAC) analytical framework was employed to explore the full range of mechanisms that could potentially be utilised to effectively regulate the development, stockpiling, transfer or use of riot control agents (RCAs), incapacitants and related means of delivery. From this analysis it is clear that the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and its attendant regime are the most appropriate and probably the most receptive mechanisms, at least in the short term, for the discussion of these concerns and the development of appropriate policy responses. However, the response of CWC States Parties to these issues is by no means certain and parallel processes should be established to explore alternative regulatory mechanisms with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, UN drugs conventions, international and regional human rights instruments, international humanitarian law, and transfer controls potentially yielding positive results in the next five to ten year period. Other regimes that may well prove important in the longer term include: the international criminal court and other international criminal law entities; the UN Secretary General's investigation mechanism and other ad hoc UN investigatory mechanisms. A comprehensive HAC strategy for the regulation of RCAs, incapacitants and related means of delivery will also require active involvement of informed and activist civil society in societal verification; development and promotion of norms prohibiting the involvement of scientific and medical communities in weaponisation programmes intended for malign application; and far greater active engagement of such expert communities in relevant State and international policy development processes.

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate the practices of rough sleeping and inhabiting public space, with a focus on the modern city of Rome. By inhabiting public spaces, people who are homeless expose their private sphere to public view. Paradoxically, this public exposure of the private becomes a means of exclusion according to Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou (2013). Scholars acknowledge public space as constructed by the actions that people carry out in public (Lefebvre 1991; Tschumi 1996; Harvey 2012; Jon Goodbun et al. 2014). People who are homeless certainly contribute to the construction of public space (Petty 2016). However, as asserted by architectural scholar Gill Doron, certain practices 'reveal how the public space is restricted to a very small spectrum of activities, and how many other activities are not permitted' (Doron 2000, p.254). These practices put into question what public these spaces are designed and designated for, questioning why only some activities are regarded as public and why some others take place only at night when spaces are temporary urban voids. Rough sleeping in Rome takes place mostly at night, exposing the city to its own fragilities and contradictions. Public space emerges as precarious. It is defned by social and cultural boundaries, within which urban practices alternate one with the other. These are irreconcilable poles within a parallax gap (Žižek 2009). The theoretical scaffolding of the thesis is structured alongside two other transgressive case studies: Pussy Riot's occupation in Moscow and my interviews with parkour practitioners. These cases have been investigated in comparison with homelessness in order to highlight aspects concerning occupation of space as a performative action under precarious circumstances (precarity). The literary review is combined with auto-ethnographical studies I conducted with a community of rough sleepers, comprising 20-40 members who inhabit a portico area nearby St Peter's Square in Rome. I also ran focus groups, individual interviews and project presentations to people who either are involved in charitable bodies that deal with homelessness or are part of the general public, such as passers-by in St Peter's Square. This study has revealed a series of aspects concerning the negotiation of public space and the role of agency and mediation. This study has stimulated questions concerning the role design can play in discourses of social innovation and inclusion. The research conducted has also outlined diffculties concerning the range of data and the possible response to the many voices heard. How can design re-imagine the centre ground between alternative practices in space? By highlighting the centre as precarious, is it possible to fnd a way of re-thinking the centre? On the basis of this study, the aim of the research has been to look at the state of the gap between these alternative poles, investigating and exploring the concept of precarity. This suggests the possibility of redefning concepts of mediation, social inclusion and architectural activism, articulated further through a series of speculative projects, concluding with the presentation of a 'precarious' object I designed together with the community of rough sleepers in St Peter's Square and COTRAD onlus (a charitable body based in Rome).

This study looks at female musicians performing in subcultural rock genres commonly considered non-gender-conforming, such as punk rock, heavy metal, noise, and experimental. Twenty-four interviews were conducted with female musicians who reflected on their experiences as musicians. Themes emerged on women’s patterns of entry into music, barriers they negotiated while playing, and forces that may push them out of the music scene. Once women gained a musician identity, their gender functioned as a master status. They negotiated sexism when people questioned their abilities, assumed men played better, expected them to fail, held them to conventional gender roles, and sexually objectified them. Normative expectations of women as primary caregivers for children, internalization of criticism, and high personal expectations are considered as factors that contribute to women’s exit from musical careers. This research closes with suggestions for how more women and girls can be socialized into rock music.

During August 2012 the issues of women's rights in Russia attracted attention of the U.S. newspapers, which was an unusual occurrence for this unprivileged region in feminist theorizing. In my thesis I explore the rhetoric around the Pussy Riot trial and verdict. I argue that international media rendered the protest metonymically, thereby reducing its political content to human rights and Cold War frames. I explore the usage of historical references in the narratives, based on these paradigms. The oppressiveness of the Russian government is constructed through Cold War rhetoric by references to Stalinism, which masks the neoliberal content of this case. The confrontation is represented as a clash of cultures based on the contrast between democracy and oppressive regimes, with Pussy Riot as martyrs for Western values and Putin as an Oriental dictator. I argue that this rhetoric has troubling implications for social activism, that democracy could be only achieved through non-violent and individualist symbolic activism which relies on the Western standards. The second part of my thesis analyzes how social movements in the U.S. and Russia interact with each other and influence each other's tactics through interaction with media representations of the Pussy Riot trial and dominant narratives regarding activism. My support for this argument comes from an analysis of the U.S. and Russian movements' responses to the Pussy Riot trial. Embracing a complex combination of political meanings, these events were significantly determined by prolific mass media coverage and mediated interaction between activist groups. / text

The impact of Black Power rhetoric and ideology in Louisville, Kentucky in 1967-1970 is explored. The role of Black Power in shaping the discourse of Louisville’s black counter-public and civil rights counter-public is analyzed in the context of the 1967 open housing demonstrations, the May, 1968 riot, and the trial of the ‘Black Six’. Black Power played a vital role in community organizing and in displays of black national and cultural pride. It actively challenged the city’s mystique of Southern white paternalism embraced by the mayoral administration of Kenneth Schmied. Despite that administrations allegations, Black power rhetoric in the West End did not play a significant role in the riot that left two African American youth dead.

La thèse porte sur la représentation de la foule « rebelle » dans la littérature italienne du XIXème siècle. Tout en considérant les contributions des sciences sociales, de Le Bon a l'école lombrosienne de Scipio Sighele et Pasquale Rossi, passant par Freud, jusqu'aux sociologues plus contemporains, comme Reich, Ortega y Gasset, Canetti, Allport, Turner etc, la recherche se concentre sur le roman et la nouvelle, qui voient le jour dans une Italie qui, luttant pour son unité nationale, n'arrive pas a transformer la révolution politique en révolution nationale, selon la formule de Nievo. Manzoni fixe le modèle de représentation des foules rebelles, qui sera suivi par Nievo avec des variations importantes. Ensuite, l'influence de Zola s'ajoutera a celle de Manzoni et dominera, d'une part, l'idée que la foule est capable de montrer un comportement rationnel et d'être un sujet vraiment révolutionnaire (les scapigliati, Valera, De Amicis, etc), d'autre part celle du pessimisme et du destin prédéterminé des masses (Verga). Enfin, Gabriele D'Annunzio, dans ses nouvelles et ses romans, oscillera entre la fascination pour la sauvagerie des foules et son méprise d'aristocratique. / The thesis is about the representation of the rebel crowds in the Italian literature in the 19th century. We consider the contributions of social sciences, from Le Bon to the lombrosian school of Scipio Sighele and Pasquale Rossi, as well as Freud, until some more contemporary sociologists, like Reich, Ortega y Gasset, Canetti, Allport, Turner etc; but the research focuses on the novels and the short stories, which are conceived in Italie, when the fight for the national unity tries, without success, to transform the political revolution in a national revolution, according to the expression of Nievo. Manzoni standardizes de model of the representation of the rebel crowds, which will be followed by Nievo, with some important variations. Therefore, the influence of Zola adds to the Manzoni's one. It will dominate, on the one hand, the idea of a rational crowd, that is a potential revolutionary subject (the , scapigliati, Valera, De Amicis, etc), on the other hand the one of the pessimism and of the predetermined destiny of the masses (Verga). Finally, Gabriele D'Annunzio, in his novels and short stories, fluctuates between the fascination for the savage side of the crowds and his aristocratic contempt.

In the last ten years several violent protests have emerged in Sweden´s largest cities. Some of them have developed into real riots, resulting in burned cars and large police operations. These violent events, or ‘urban riots’, are a relatively new phenomenon in Sweden. The aim of this qualitative study is to investigate the structure of the discourse among the Swedish political elite in power. I will observe if the political discourse on disadvantaged areas in Sweden is characterized by continuity or change after urban riots. This study examines four urban riot cases, between 2005 and 2013.    To study how the political discourse is constructed, framing theory elements are combined with elements from discourse analysis. The characteristic features of the two framing dimensions are outlined which gives me a framework to categorize the political discourse. The two dimensions are; diagnostic and prognostic frames. The discourse analytical elements are used in order to systemize who is included in the political discourse by the political elite in power. A discourse analysis is then conducted on the collected empirical material, which consists of newspaper articles and parliamentarian debates from the Swedish parliament.   The results from the analysis suggest that the disadvantaged districts are not salient both before and after the riots among the political elite in power, except for the last case. In this case the riot as such has no observable ‘effect’ on political discourse about disadvantaged districts. The political actors tend to separate riots as events from the disadvantaged districts. The last riot did not change how the government defined the problem in the suburbs and how it should be solved. In all cases the political discourse has a strong divide between the state and the inhabitants in the suburbs. The state acts and residents are acted upon.

In February 2012, less than two weeks before presidential elections in Russia, a two-minute video of young women in brightly colored masks and short dresses was uploaded to YouTube. The video featured four members of the Pussy Riot punk feminist band performing a wild dance in front of the altar of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Lip-syncing to a song, which they called a punk prayer, they beseeched the Virgin Mary to "drive" Vladimir Putin, then the prime minister and a presidential candidate, "away." The performance was followed by the quick arrest of three of the band members and a trial in a criminal court that sentenced them to two years in a penal colony on charges of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and transformed the case into a symbol of the infringement of freedom of expression in Putin's Russia. This research explores the legal and discursive strategies for marginalizing political dissent and discusses the implications of the case for shrinking the arena of legitimate public debate in contemporary Russia. As revealed by a critical discourse analysis of a report by psychological and linguistic experts that formed the basis of the prosecutor's case, it employed a range of discursive devices that normalized conformity and depoliticized the band's critique. Whereas those discursive devices portrayed Pussy Riot's religiously contextualized speech as socially unacceptable, the analysis of the court's decision revealed the mechanism that made it illegal. An analysis of the rationale used by the court to justify the criminal conviction of Pussy Riot showed clear prosecutorial bias. The post-case amendments that were introduced into Russia's Criminal Code and Code of Administrative Violations toughened up the punitive measures in articles associated with insulting religious feelings of citizens and contributed to further authorizing limitations on political speech on religious and moral grounds. As demonstrated by an analysis of the media coverage of the Pussy Riot affair, the Russian press did little to delegitimize this power abuse. The state-run newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta took a clear stance in support of the prosecution. The mainstream newspaper, Izvestia, although not demonstrating a consistent prosecutorial bias, did not provide any sensible alternatives to the government's framing of the affair. Neither did the liberal-oppositional outlet Gazeta.ru. It failed to provide a comprehensive, substantial, and contextualized coverage of Pussy Riot's activism and portrayed them not as agents of change, but as victims of the vigilant, all-powerful state. By doing so, it did not take advantage of the public resonance of the case to elevate a discussion about the feasibility of dissent in an increasingly authoritarian context and thus potentially contributed to undermining the value of political protest. The treatment of the Pussy Riot affair by the Russian state contributed to further infringements of freedom of expression, strengthened the interpenetration of church and state and illuminated the legal system's role as a tool for conserving the status quo of power relations in contemporary Russia.

The study aims to examine international protest art in a local cultural policy context. The exhibition Pussy Riot and the Cossacks – Russian Tradition of Art Resistance opened in June, 2014. The study examines the exhibition process along with the reactions the exhibition gave rise to. The methods used consists of idea- and reception analysis where Geir Vestheim's ideal types about instrumental culture is used along with the concept of the arm lengths priciple. Study shows that there are differences in the opinions on the uses of art between the art gallery and its funding agencies Norrbottens läns landsting and Bodens kommun. Study also shows that the specific local context of the exhibition Pussy Riot and the Cossacks together with the viewers previous experiences plays a part in how the exhibition is percieved.