In 2003, China’s Ministry of Culture published the ‘Interim Regulations on the Administration of Internet Culture’: a list of rules concerning all cultural products on the internet, including music...Show moreIn 2003, China’s Ministry of Culture published the ‘Interim Regulations on the Administration of Internet Culture’: a list of rules concerning all cultural products on the internet, including music. On August 10th, 2015, the Chinese Ministry of Culture used article 16 on the Interim Regulations on the Administration of Internet Culture to censor a total of 120 Chinese songs from the internet. The ministry labeled the 120 songs as blacklisted, because their content was seen as ‘endangering social morality’, according to article 16. A key point of censorship and morality in music in China is that the Chinese government’s rules and regulations for what is considered moral and immoral in music are phrased in very generic terms, leaving room for interpretation. That leaves us with the question, can the blacklisting of the 120 songs be meaningfully related to these rules and regulations? This thesis explores the complex relationship between music, morality and politics in contemporary China by performing a discourse analysis on the banned songs and the legislations regarding internet culture.Show less
Research master thesis | Political Science and Public Administration (research) (MSc)
open access
2017-08-01T00:00:00Z
Since the proliferation of democratizing countries in Africa, ethnic conflict has also increased. One of the explanations for this phenomenon is that ethnicity become politicized when democratic...Show moreSince the proliferation of democratizing countries in Africa, ethnic conflict has also increased. One of the explanations for this phenomenon is that ethnicity become politicized when democratic institutions are installed, and ethnic cleavages are widened, creating more conflict. In order to temper conflict and stabilize the democratization process it is sometimes needed to use undemocratic tools, such as party bans. While sometimes banning an ethnic party leads to less conflict, sometimes it also leads to more. This thesis will explain how a party ban will decrease conflict when it is based on old, existing law or regulation and accompanied by other institutional arrangements giving incentives for inter-ethnic cooperation and promote cross-cutting cleavages. Two cases of party bans in Mauritania and two cases in Nigeria are used to explain the mechanism of the causal effect between party ban and conflict level.Show less
