Defensible Spaces, a concept created by Oscar Newman, is defined as the built environment being manipulate by design to create areas that are less vulnerable to crime, providing residents with ways...Show moreDefensible Spaces, a concept created by Oscar Newman, is defined as the built environment being manipulate by design to create areas that are less vulnerable to crime, providing residents with ways to control and defend their space. Three key components that activate defensible space, and thus can be used to analyse the success of a defensible space, include territoriality, natural surveillance, and image/milieu. These spaces can be both public and private (owned), with a trend of privatised-public spaces becoming prominent in Europe. The Netherlands, although implementing defensible spaces into its urban landscape, lacks comprehensive literature analysing how the concept has been used to design various Dutch areas. Using an analysis of primary sources, secondary literature, case studies of Dutch defensible spaces, observations, and maps, a more complete picture of defensible spaces in the country was created. Defensible spaces in the Netherlands could be identified in streets, policies, train stations, housings complexes, and shopping streets. The Beurstaverse, a below-ground shopping street in Rotterdam, was revitalised to incorporate defensible space techniques. The privately owned public space can be identified as a successful defensible space due to its prominent surveillance, territorially due to being below ground, and positive image/milieu, therefore being the primary case study and point of analysis. Defensible spaces in the Netherlands tend to follow common trends, being highly surveilled and encompassing a positive image/milieu, though the Dutch have new ways of increasing territoriality in a space, often neglecting to use physical barriers. Scholars opinions remain positive about implementations, but the privatisation of public spaces is heavily criticised, primarily in the cases of the Beurstraverse and gated communities in the country. Therefore, this thesis analysis defensible spaces in the Netherlands, how successful they are according to Oscar Newmans three key activation components, and how their ownership (public or private) influences the space.Show less
Data sharing and data harvesting practices not only infringe the privacy rights of individuals but cause significant harms to others as well. Emissions of personally sensitive behavioural data are...Show moreData sharing and data harvesting practices not only infringe the privacy rights of individuals but cause significant harms to others as well. Emissions of personally sensitive behavioural data are leaked into the digital economy causing damage to social practices and destabilizing political and informational ecosystems. Data pollution is like industrial pollution, and environmental law suggestions can offer solutions to the problem. Will a Pigouvian tax on data extraction limit or constrain the negative externalities of data pollution? This explorative research aims to investigate whether a data pollution tax can operate as a regulatory instrument to curb data pollution and whether citizens support this measure. Do citizens support a data pollution tax designed so that harms to others, affecting their core human capabilities, will be taxed as a matter of principle? Suppose excessive (corporate) data sharing and extraction practices that cause harm to others will be taxed. Do individuals expect that persons and corporations will change their data transmission practices? Our survey findings show that (United States) citizens consider that harms caused by data pollution should be taxed. Respondents will also substantially decrease their data pollution behaviour once a tax is imposed. However, and to our surprise, our research findings also lay bare a possible ‘bad behaviour paradox’: the more significant the harm caused by some instances of data pollution, the less willing people are to change behaviour relative to the tax imposed.Show less
This thesis offers a qualitative approach to understanding the interactions between the European Parliament (EP) and the European Central Bank (ECB). The European Parliament supervises the ECB...Show moreThis thesis offers a qualitative approach to understanding the interactions between the European Parliament (EP) and the European Central Bank (ECB). The European Parliament supervises the ECB through the Banking Dialogue and the Monetary Dialogue. By doing this, the EP actively seeks to demand accountability from the ECB. The extent to which the EP does this is examined in this work. An interactionist qualitative model is used to analyse 10 hearings (1,5-3 hours) between April 2018 and June 2019. It is found that althought the European Parliament is restrained in its possibilities to demand accountability, members of the EP make effective use of the tools they have: they engage in informed and targeted dialogue, and demand accountability through scrutiny and justification requests.Show less
This thesis entails a dialogue between Foucauldian- and Confucian philosophy. Although at first sight rather different, these two thinkers both share a concern for human conduct and its origins. By...Show moreThis thesis entails a dialogue between Foucauldian- and Confucian philosophy. Although at first sight rather different, these two thinkers both share a concern for human conduct and its origins. By means of discipline and etiquette, human behavior is sculpted and influenced; this thesis argues for a world in which we pay attention to Confucian etiquette and Foucauldian discipline to better understand our own social behavior, and that of others. This thesis aims at providing a place for both these phenomena and its advocates to interlock.Show less
This thesis analyses the role of measurement in in surveillance. Aiming to answer the question of Which is the role of measurement in surveillance photography? First considering how measurement has...Show moreThis thesis analyses the role of measurement in in surveillance. Aiming to answer the question of Which is the role of measurement in surveillance photography? First considering how measurement has been instrumentalised to control the population by establishing standard dimensions, that serve to categorise and to catalogue individuals, and formulating the categories of deviant and normal. In the first chapter, I draw from John Tagg's analysis of documentary photography, who defends that evidence photography is necessarily attached to a power discourse. I defend that the specificities of photography as a static media do not only allow for the measurement of individuals and spaces but, photography has historically played an important role in creating these distinctions. In the second chapter, it takes into account the role of measurement in space, more specifically regards to the notion of ´Visual Nominalism´ coined by media theorist, Lev Manovich, who elaborates on how technologies of linear perspective, such as photography, have allowed placing an individual in an exact point in space. Parallel to this, in the light of these theories , I analyse how contemporary photographers, on the subject of surveillance, adopt the visual language of measurement in photography to deal with notions of control in contemporary society, exposing, this time, in a visual way, how the language of dominance is far from inherent but has been carefully constructed. Both in relation to space and to individuals the specific qualities of photography allow for control through measurement.Show less
Ever since the foundation of the online video platform YouTube in 2006 and the online social media platforms Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2006), the mass spreading of the animal rights...Show moreEver since the foundation of the online video platform YouTube in 2006 and the online social media platforms Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2006), the mass spreading of the animal rights organisations’ undercover footage over the Internet has caused a lot of controversy and has resulted in for example the dismissal of certain animal products by major companies under the pressure of the media. Evidently, these photographs and videos do affect people. This observation was the starting point of my research and lead me to the main research question: Which characteristics of the media photography and film are exploited in three approaches to footage shot in factory farms by undercover investigators of animal rights organisations?Show less
