Bachelor thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (BSc)
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China is growing as an international competitor with its gaze directed toward Africa. Chinese state-owned Multinational Corporations (MNCs) gradually gaining a foothold in African countries raise...Show moreChina is growing as an international competitor with its gaze directed toward Africa. Chinese state-owned Multinational Corporations (MNCs) gradually gaining a foothold in African countries raise worries for other investors like the West. The impacts of Chinese MNCs on the international capitalist market are researched in debt but I will connect this to the study of power relations. Not only will this give insights into the local employees as active subjects that are engaged in various relationships of power, but it will also highlight how macro and micro-level actors mutually influence each other. Eventually, I will argue that these power relations are unequal and used by actors to preserve relations of power. Central to this thesis is a discussion of power as a dynamic and socially constructed relationship that can be used to preserve structures of power. This approach toward power follows Foucault in his understanding and goes against the idea of power as a possession. Power relations become visible in Chinese Multinational Corporations (MNCs) expanding overseas to Africa which has implications for actors at both the micro and the macro-level. Power relations visualize that all actors are involved in processes of legitimizing themselves and through this process produce and reproduce power relations.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
Neoliberalism has altered the way in which the subject consumes and subsequently reflects upon media. A popular media genre on the internet nowadays is instruction videos, which can be consumed for...Show moreNeoliberalism has altered the way in which the subject consumes and subsequently reflects upon media. A popular media genre on the internet nowadays is instruction videos, which can be consumed for various reasons, but usually rely on the notion of conveying to the viewer a certain set of skills. Since these media are therefore consumed for a specific purpose intended, the viewer already pre-establishes a certain attitude and understanding, and furthermore gains a reflective understanding of this phenomenon itself. This thesis aims to reconsider the notion of spectatorship through a lens of phenomenology, in order to reevaluate the idea of a spectator's own understanding of their experience of a medium, which this thesis names "cognitive spectatorship," and shows how the genre of instruction videos and this new viewing attitude play into the Neoliberal ideology.Show less
Russia and Argentina have been, for different reasons, two important international actors over the course of the 20th century. During the 1990s, both countries have undergone a process of economic...Show moreRussia and Argentina have been, for different reasons, two important international actors over the course of the 20th century. During the 1990s, both countries have undergone a process of economic restructuring guided by the International Monetary Fund, at the end of which both experienced a financial crisis (Russia in 1998, Argentina in 2001). This thesis tries to place these events in historical perspective and share a snapshot on the similarities and differences of these experiments, according to the principles of world-system theory. The aim of the research is to determine whether there was a causal relationship between the neoliberal policies implemented at the beginning of the decade and the crises. A central finding of the research is that there is a specific trajectory of economic development and institutional response in semi-peripheral areas, which builds on the presence of weak democratic institutions and debt spirals.Show less
This thesis investigates how the German Federal Government lives up to its normative and international commitments and initiatives to harmonize arms export controls. By analyzing existing data from...Show moreThis thesis investigates how the German Federal Government lives up to its normative and international commitments and initiatives to harmonize arms export controls. By analyzing existing data from the Federal Government’s yearly reports on its policy on exports of conventional military equipment and applying the International Relations Theories of Neorealism and Neoliberalism, it highlights the inseparability of arms export policy frameworks and foreign and security policy interests in the case of Germany. Furthermore, this thesis calls attention to the hierarchical structure that exists within this inseparability where the country’s arms export policy framework is given a secondary role to its foreign and security interests.Show less
