An analysis of the emotive portrayal of Dutch-Israeli relations by Dutch scholarship, looking at three case studies between the years 1979-1982 to see if there is sufficient empirical evidence for...Show moreAn analysis of the emotive portrayal of Dutch-Israeli relations by Dutch scholarship, looking at three case studies between the years 1979-1982 to see if there is sufficient empirical evidence for this emotive portrayal in academic studies.Show less
The Middle East has seen increases in sectarian violence in the last decades. Critics of Iran accuse the country of having a Shi'a sectarian agenda and of stoking tensions. The academic mainstream...Show moreThe Middle East has seen increases in sectarian violence in the last decades. Critics of Iran accuse the country of having a Shi'a sectarian agenda and of stoking tensions. The academic mainstream literature on the topic is occupied with the puzzle of "How ideological/rational is Iran?" which leads to problems of ambiguity by assuming a unitary foreign policy on a dichotomous spectrum. This thesis critically assesses the Iranian foreign policy puzzle concerning sectarian ideology and reformulates its research question to "How does sectarianism factor into Iranian foreign policy?" and argues that domestic factional structures, translated through institutions, lead to sectarian features of the state's leading ideology, namely Khomeinism, being factored into the country's foreign policy decision making. A new factional analytical framework centred around interpretations of Khomeinist doctrine is developed and applied to events which are said to have led to increased sectarianism on a regional level.Show less
The attacks of the Islamic State to cultural heritage in Syria and Iraq have been described by UNESCO and other international organizations as a strategy of "cultural cleansing". However, the...Show moreThe attacks of the Islamic State to cultural heritage in Syria and Iraq have been described by UNESCO and other international organizations as a strategy of "cultural cleansing". However, the concept was rejected multiple times in the framework of international law, and now amounts to a groundless menace, incapable of generating consequences for the perpetrators. This thesis uses critical concept analysis to understand why international organizations keep using the concept "cultural cleansing" despite its recurrent exclusion from international law, and what consequences this concept encompasses.Show less
The study delves into the convoluted relationship between women and war and analysis the reasons that led Israel and Palestine to admit women in their combat units in the early 2000s.
Since its foundation in 1996, Al Jazeera and its English subsidiary Al Jazeera English, established in 2006, have revolutionized the Middle Eastern news media landscape by critically reporting on...Show moreSince its foundation in 1996, Al Jazeera and its English subsidiary Al Jazeera English, established in 2006, have revolutionized the Middle Eastern news media landscape by critically reporting on events in the immediate region and by emphasizing the experiences of people from the Global South. This lead to the coining of the term ‘the Al Jazeera effect’ by Philip Seib. However, the only directive issued by its main sponsor, the Qatari government, is that it should not put the monarchy in a negative light. While different countries in the Middle East have begun following Qatar’s footsteps by establishing English-language news media of their own, an issue that is materializing in parallel is the worldwide declining trust in the news media. As various news networks around the globe are seeing their credibility—the quality of being trusted—questioned, this thesis ties these two developments together by asking how Al Jazeera English, as well as two of its English-language competitors in the region, being PressTV from Iran and TRT World from Turkey, go about establishing their credibility. More particularly, how do these three networks fare when they report on a conflict in their proverbial backyard, the Syrian Civil War, the outcome of which concerns Qatar, Iran, and Turkey alike? By borrowing from the existing scholarly literature on the analysis of news media credibility, this thesis looks at YouTube material on the Syrian Civil War in the first five months of 2019 from the flagship current affairs discussion program on each network, Inside Story on Al Jazeera English, The Debate on PressTV, and The Newsmakers on TRT World in order to demonstrate whether the latter two networks cater for their own ‘effect’ in the Middle Eastern news media arena. Moreover, this thesis hopes to expand our understanding of how we should view the three news outlets: as critical watchdogs of political institutions, or as mouthpieces for their respective governments.Show less
