Why did neighboring countries respond differently to the same disaster? To formulate an answer, this research analyses the opposing responses of Germany and France to the Fukushima nuclear disaster...Show moreWhy did neighboring countries respond differently to the same disaster? To formulate an answer, this research analyses the opposing responses of Germany and France to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. This focusing event triggered responses from governments around the world about their own nuclear sector. The Event-related Policy Framework by Birkland (1998) allows to explain the different responses by analyzing the media coverage and group mobilization, in the form of protests, in both countries. The framework shows that several aspects of the media coverage can influence people’s perceptions on an issue. When their perception does not align with the policy, people are likely to protest and these protests put pressure on the government to change policy. This research argues that the volume of coverage on the event, the use of harmed nuclear plant images and the amount of (negative) references to the domestic nuclear sector can explain why the governments of France and Germany responded differently, or even opposingly.Show less
In this research the movement of the foster parent shortage on and off the political and public agenda was analyzed using Downs’ issue-attention cycle. By applying this theory to a media and policy...Show moreIn this research the movement of the foster parent shortage on and off the political and public agenda was analyzed using Downs’ issue-attention cycle. By applying this theory to a media and policy analysis this paper tried to answer the question: To what extend does the complex nature of the foster parent shortage influence it’s movement from and onto the agenda without durable improvement? What was found is that the foster parent shortage seems to go through the cycle at some points in the past fifteen years, but that there are also moments where there is media attention or policy change outside of the issue-attention cycle. This suggest the pattern with which the problem moves on and off the agenda is more eclectic than the issue-attention cycle Downs describes.Show less
This paper examines the way in which political leaders influence the trust of citizens in their political leader by using certain framing strategies during speeches and press conferences....Show moreThis paper examines the way in which political leaders influence the trust of citizens in their political leader by using certain framing strategies during speeches and press conferences. Specifically, it focuses on the political leaders of the United States and the Netherlands during the first half of the corona pandemic in 2020.Show less
Leading up to the secession vote in Crimea in March 2014, a shift in the monopoly on violence led to shift in the information available, the popular demand, and the future options and costs to the...Show moreLeading up to the secession vote in Crimea in March 2014, a shift in the monopoly on violence led to shift in the information available, the popular demand, and the future options and costs to the local decision makers. Having demonstrated these shifts by analyzing news paper articles written during the crisis, and using Hirschmann's theory of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty we can conclude the change in circumstances led to local parliamentarians to support the secession measures.Show less
This article is aimed at developing our understanding of ethnic conflict and war which is needed to be able to build new theories about resolving these conflicts what is up until now barely covered...Show moreThis article is aimed at developing our understanding of ethnic conflict and war which is needed to be able to build new theories about resolving these conflicts what is up until now barely covered within the literature. This is executed by testing the theory of Tang, Xiong and Li about the ethnogeographical location of the oil. This theory states that when the oil is located within the core territory of a subordinate minority group it has a positive effect on the onset and escalation of an ethnic conflict. By performing case studies on conflicts between the Kurds and the Iraq state and Cabinda and Angola we found this theory to be true. There is also found that each case has a high degree of specificity which makes it very difficult to establish a universal model to accommodate ethnical conflicts caused by the ethnogeographical location of the oil. It is therefore logical to suggest further research which aims at establishing a framework for resolving ethnical conflict to perform a case study and develop a case specific solution while attempts of establishing a universal one are likely to fail.Show less
The Copenhagen School brought security back to the arena of debate in the 1990s and it has been a popular framework since. This thesis is devoted to this concept of securitization in the domain of...Show moreThe Copenhagen School brought security back to the arena of debate in the 1990s and it has been a popular framework since. This thesis is devoted to this concept of securitization in the domain of cyber. In 2011, a breach was detected in DigiNotar, a company that issued online certificates. This almost led to a total blackout in the Netherlands, showing the vulnerabilities in the Dutch digital domain. The remarkable aspect of this crisis (which has become known as the DigiNotar-crisis) is the reluctant reaction of the ministers and senior officials with regards to cybersecurity. In 2018, however, this topic ruled the security debate, despite the fact that no clear threat or equivalent crisis has occurred in the Netherlands since the DigiNotar-crisis. This thesis takes the concept of securitization, known as the Copenhagen School, and applies it to the cyber sector, that is characterized by three specific modalities of securitizations: hypersecuritizations, everyday security practices and technification. This thesis applies those three modalities in letters to the Dutch parliament concerning cybersecurity. aiming to investigate how securitization developed over time and to clarify why the political attention on cybersecurity increased in a time without a visible and direct threat, while the biggest crisis so far was not enough to cause changes (DigiNotar). This thesis shows that cyber securitizations increased in the period between 2011 and 2020. All three modalities were identified in the letters, with increasing frequency in the last years. A remarkable finding is that cybersecurity became a more integral security issue when the new cabinet was appointed in 2017-2018. In conclusion, this inductive research has proven the applicability of ‘cyber securitization’ in the Dutch context, and has shown that the change of securitizing actors (the Dutch cabinet) influenced the intensity of cyber securitizations and the political agenda more than the DigiNotar-crisis did.Show less
