This paper contributes to the growing body of research on opposition fragmentation by asking whether the opposition’s format influences its publicly perceived performance and electoral success, as...Show moreThis paper contributes to the growing body of research on opposition fragmentation by asking whether the opposition’s format influences its publicly perceived performance and electoral success, as well as people’s satisfaction with democracy. Using regression analyses, I show that both the polarisation and the fragmentation of the opposition are associated with a decline in people’s attitudes toward them. Furthermore, an increase in opposition polarisation is associated with a decline in citizens’ satisfaction with democracy, while the fragmentation of the opposition shows the opposite effect. Lastly, the opposition’s polarisation and fragmentation show no significant effect on the governing parties’ vote share. Overall, the results of this paper suggest that investigating the format of the opposition gives insides not only into the public perception of opposition parties but also into citizens’ satisfaction with democracy.Show less
This thesis examines the role of war metaphors in the political discourse of extreme right political figures: Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy and how they shape the extreme right ideology of the...Show moreThis thesis examines the role of war metaphors in the political discourse of extreme right political figures: Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy and how they shape the extreme right ideology of the Make America Great Again Movement (MAGA). War metaphors are rhetorical devices used in everyday language to communicate abstract ideas using more broadly understood domains like war and promote societal salience. The analysis of militarism in society and politics is foundational to the Critical Military Studies discipline, however, there has been little engagement with the study of war metaphors and their influence on polarisation in democracies, which this thesis aims to address. The thesis performs a Critical Metaphor Analysis, which integrates the disciplines of Conceptual Metaphor Theory with Critical Discourse Analysis. The analysis of discourse considers a 3-month collection of tweets since 1 January 2024 to examine war metaphors in informal political discourse in the months nearing United States presidential elections. The analysis finds the employment of war metaphors to primarily manifest in three ways: language of attack, language of defence, and adoption of militarism and patriotism. These forms of war metaphors depart from the traditional use of war metaphors to motivate the acceptance of violence and promote a climate of affective polarisation. The prominence of war metaphors in MAGA discourse is observed to promote the acceptance of authoritarian politics and mobilise violent action, which all serves to erode democracy in an established liberal democracy like the United States.Show less
Although social media has revolutionized how we learn, form opinions, and have conversations, it also has the potential to undermine democracy. Due to the rise of social media and digital media,...Show moreAlthough social media has revolutionized how we learn, form opinions, and have conversations, it also has the potential to undermine democracy. Due to the rise of social media and digital media, political polarization online has sharply increased, with even elected officials and members of the political elite class also engaging in divisive propaganda and false information. This study, through a Twitter analysis, explores the impact of political polarization on citizens' beliefs in their democratic institutions, electoral systems, and government. This research applies relevant but underappreciated theories like the legitimacy theory and the homophily theory to understand how democracy and the internet interact.Show less
Structural color in insects is a well-known topic that has been studied intensely in the past decades with the progress in computational tools. These studies are mostly limited to specific species...Show moreStructural color in insects is a well-known topic that has been studied intensely in the past decades with the progress in computational tools. These studies are mostly limited to specific species and largely ignore the role of polarization. In this thesis we report a preliminary characterization of a setup that can measure the angle and polarization dependent reflection and transmission spectrum of a single Morpho menelaus butterfly scale or the local polarization dependent reflection spectra of beetle. The beam waist of white light in this setup can be as small as 40um, sufficient to address the spectrum of individual butterfly scales. The reflection of beetles is of particular interest. Reports in literature show that many beetles reflect only left circular polarized light that might be linked to the homo-chirality of nature in general and chitine molecules in particular. We build a theoretical model to explain these properties and compare our model to the results of Lowrey et al. for the Cetonischema jousselini at normal incidence. An extension of the model to other angles of incidence confirms that some right circular polarized signals can be observed for angle of incidence beyond 40 providing a basis for the observations of right circular reflection in the Cetonischema jousselini reported by Haged¨ us et. al.. The calculated spectra (elements of a Mueller matrix) are converted to RGB values as a function of angle of incidence to compare the calculations to images of beetles taken through circular polarizers with a commercial camera.Show less
This thesis seeks to examine the strand of Buddhism called Engaged Buddhism within the context of a Western political science concept called affective polarisation. Formulated in differing societal...Show moreThis thesis seeks to examine the strand of Buddhism called Engaged Buddhism within the context of a Western political science concept called affective polarisation. Formulated in differing societal contexts on different continent, the doctrines expressed in both theories inevitably showcase differences between one another. However, more interesting than the differences that can be found are the similarities, which provide striking and illuminating points of correspondence. Formulating the structure of this thesis by means of the triad of thesis, antithesis, synthesis might clarify the effort that will be undertaken. The first chapter will discuss arguments in support of how affective polarisation can best be ameliorated. Affective polarisation has been addressed as fitting into the theory of social identity. The second chapter will look at how from a Western perspective, similarities can be discerned in Engaged Buddhism with regards to affective polarisation. But more importantly, this chapter will allow for a different Buddhist perspective on how to tackle the problem of affective polarisation. The conclusion will naturally culminate in the synthesis.Show less
This thesis finds that to a certain extent, social media news consumption has contributed to mass political polarisation in the United States between 2006 and 2016. The thesis is divided into four...Show moreThis thesis finds that to a certain extent, social media news consumption has contributed to mass political polarisation in the United States between 2006 and 2016. The thesis is divided into four chapters to come to this conclusion. In the first chapter, multiple forms of political polarisation are scrutinised by means of a model. Secondly, literature on the topic is put in relation and context with each other. In the third chapter, attention is devoted to polarising mechanisms of Facebook and Twitter. In the last chapter, other possible causes of mass polarisation in the United States are related to social media news consumption as a cause.Show less
