By examining Gandhi as a political organiser it may be possible to bridge the gap between two interpretations of his importance -- one which focuses on his propagation of nonviolence "as a way of life", the other- which treats him as a pioneer in the use of nonviolence "as a conflict technique. " Gandhi named his philosophy and his method of action, "satyagraha". Between 1915 and 1922 he emerged as the organiser of local satyagraha campaigns in Bihar and Gujarat. He moved quickly, however, to leadership of further struggles at a national level, in particular the hoxlatt Satyagraha in 1919 and Noncooperation eighteen months later. The thesis explores, through a series of case studies, how Gandhi developed his methods as he moved over a period of about five years from local to national scale. At the national level, Gandhi failed to take India by storm as he had hoped through organisations founded by himself to propagate his principles like the Satyagraha Sabha and the Swadeshi Sabha. He therefore forged alliances with political figures from other perspectives within the Khilafat movement and the Indian Rational Congress who nonetheless were prepared to follow his direction. A principal means which Gandhi developed for generating solidarity between the nation's educated "classes" and the "masses" and for mobilising people short of civil disobedience, was the promotion of campaigns of constructive work. This is particularly clear in his planning and leadership of the Noncooperation movement. Presentation of nonviolent action in the West, by overstressing the "conflict" aspect of satyagraha and neglecting the "constructive", has been one-sided. The importance in Gandhi's method as an organiser of a concept of constructive programme and its application in practice suggests that advocates of nonviolent action as a technique should look more closely at the balance between the two aspects in his approach. The thesis concludes with a review'of the rules and stages in Gandhi's satyagraha campaigns which have been proposed in the work of Joan Bondurant. / Long Dene Fund

Recent years have witnessed a slow but persistent erosion of the democratic governing of the U.S. Political scientists have identified several severe threats against the American democracy, including the spread of misinformation, the impact of negative partisanship, and the lack of political belonging for marginalized groups. While research on these threats abounds at the macro level, what remains under researched are the conduct of ordinary people as they navigate these issues and exercise civic rights.From the micro-analytic perspective of Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, this dissertation examines the practices that ordinary citizens and U.S. Members of Congress (MOCs) use to navigate these issues. 50 recordings of town hall meetings were collected from social media pages of the MOCs’ offices from 24 US States with the majority being House Representatives and several Senators. The dissertation addresses, on the one hand, how citizens navigate the following issues: introducing misinformation as part of one’s town hall contribution, (re)producing negative partisanship, and (re)producing exclusionary stances towards minoritized groups; and on the other, how MOCs respond to these issues. First, citizens assert epistemic superiority or appeal to rationality when bringing in factually unfounded information to town hall contributions. MOCs may choose to endorse, sidestep, or refute the misinformation when responding. Secondly, citizens present irreconcilable alternatives, presuppose a zero-sum game, or ascribe categories of threats to the opposing party. MOCs can choose to neutralize or upgrade the negative partisanship and even initiate it on their own. Finally, citizens assign categories of immorality against minoritized groups or establish their own religious superiority for maintaining exclusionary stances. MOCs may disalign with such stances by offering contesting categories, redirecting the focus of discussion, or disaffiliating with the citizens’ exclusionary stance via a telling. With the perspective of “motivated looking,” this dissertation is a continued effort in critically informed EMCA research and can be used to strengthen research on participatory democracy by its inherently emic approach. More importantly, findings from this dissertation can be adapted by organizations, teachers, and individuals to hold or facilitate more productive conversations around civic topics.

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