The stability of the country and maintaining public order and harmony have been among the top priorities of the government of the small city-state of Singapore, ever since its independence in 1965....Show moreThe stability of the country and maintaining public order and harmony have been among the top priorities of the government of the small city-state of Singapore, ever since its independence in 1965. The People’s Action Party (PAP), which has been in constant rule for over 65 years, has sought to maintain their hegemony and “protect the country” by actively limiting citizens' influence over politics and policies, mainly through the development of legal frameworks repressing dissent across different parts of society. By using theories on contentious politics, state repression, and the political opportunity structure, as well as a qualitative content analysis of Singapore’s laws on dissent, this thesis addresses the following research question: What are the strategies employed by the Singaporean government to repress and prevent dissent, and how do these strategies impact the political opportunity structure for contentious politics? Summarizing the findings, this thesis concludes that the state has built an extensive framework of restrictive laws covering all forms of society, rather than explicitly focusing on certain aspects, which has caused opportunities for dissenting citizens to employ methods of contentious political action to achieve their aims of influencing state policies to be exceptionally limited.Show less
This research paper delves into a case study of the Indian farmers’ protest of 2020-2021, focusing on the state actor’s response to the event and its ensuing impact on the country’s sociopolitical...Show moreThis research paper delves into a case study of the Indian farmers’ protest of 2020-2021, focusing on the state actor’s response to the event and its ensuing impact on the country’s sociopolitical landscape. While considerable literature discusses, for example, the farmers’ strategies in the movement and scholars have used the case to test various theories, the long-term consequences of the Indian state’s response to the protest remain underexplored. This paper makes use of qualitative content analysis to analyze a wide range of sources and the framing theory to gain insight into the state’s handling of the movement. The findings indicate that the Indian government used repressive measures to a notable extent and that the protest had significant, lasting impacts on Indian society, governance, and democracy. Through a detailed examination of the protest events and state action, this research sheds light on state-society dynamics and democratic challenges present in contexts as diverse as India’s.Show less
As the portion of the foreign-born population continues to grow across the European Union, gaps in overall political participation between immigrants and natives persist. This is a cause for...Show moreAs the portion of the foreign-born population continues to grow across the European Union, gaps in overall political participation between immigrants and natives persist. This is a cause for concern to European democracies, specifically regarding their representativeness of the entirety of the population that constitutes them and that they are meant to serve. While scholars have focused on more conventional forms of political participation, this research aims to specifically focus on protests as a non-conventional form of political participation while taking both experienced and perceived discrimination as the main motivators and major determinants of this type of political behavior. Using data from the Survey on Minorities and Discrimination in EU conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2016, this paper argues that both the experience and perception of discrimination are positively related to participation in protest behaviors amongst citizens of immigrant origin. This paper uses a binary logistic regression with experienced and perceived discrimination as predictor variables, and participation in protest as the response variable, while controlling for six key factors: age, gender, income, generation of immigration, interest in politics, and education. Countries were also used as control variables to counter potential biases in the results from the clustering that often occurs with the use of survey data.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Film- en literatuurwetenschap (BA)
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De BLM-protesten van 2020 als reactie op de moord op George Floyd door Derek Chauvin hebben een uitzonderlijk karakter. Door de spectrale werking van de beelden, waarin Floyd zowel levend als dood...Show moreDe BLM-protesten van 2020 als reactie op de moord op George Floyd door Derek Chauvin hebben een uitzonderlijk karakter. Door de spectrale werking van de beelden, waarin Floyd zowel levend als dood te zien is, is hij een ambigue aan- en afwezigheid bij de protesten. Aan de hand van theorieën van Butler en Derrida's conceptie van spectraliteit onderzoekt deze scriptie de werking van de viraal-gegane videobeelden in de wereldwijde protesten. Floyds "specter" opent de meervoudige potentiële loop van de geschiedenis en daarmee roept het een noodzaak voor vrijheid alsook een waarschuwing voor onrechtvaardigheid op.Show less
On the 21 st of November 2013, the then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych announced his decision to suspend signing an association agreement with the European Union. Discontent about the...Show moreOn the 21 st of November 2013, the then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych announced his decision to suspend signing an association agreement with the European Union. Discontent about the suspension lead to the eruption of protests at Independence square in Kyiv, where demonstrators insisted the president would sign the agreement as planned. When the president and his administration appeared unwilling to concede, protesters increasingly called for his resignation and for early elections. When the president fled the country in February 2014 after four months of protests, the crisis in Ukraine was far from over. The Crimean peninsula got annexed by Russia, and an armed conflict arose in the Donbas region. The events have been widely reported by international media, although in divergent ways. The western narrative characterised the protests as a revolution of dignity that would make an end to Russia’s dominance in the country. The Russian media however, presented it as a fascist coup sponsored by the West that threatened the population of the Russian world (Szostek 2018, 118-119). This paper will analyse articles that were published by RIA Novosti and later transferred to the website of Sputnik news in order to find out what narrative has been communicated to an international audience. The analysis will be done at the hand of examination of the applicability of the protest paradigm on a selection of articles that are linked to the protests. Firstly however, it will be reviewed what has so far been written on a handful of topics that relate to the topic of this paper. The crisis in Ukraine that started as a result of the protests will be introduced, after which the role of soft power in the conflict is demonstrated. Strategic narrative as a form of soft power, and various analyses of Russian narratives in this context will be displayed thereafter. As protests are oftentimes portrayed in a way that marginalises the protests and the protesters, literature that deals with the protest paradigm will be reviewed as well. The reception of strategic narratives by the audience is key to the perceived credibility of narratives and will be thus be considered as well. In order to contextualise the findings of this paper, earlier analysis of Russia Today will exemplify the current knowledge on the narratives on the Ukrainian pro-European protests in English- language Russian media.Show less
During the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, protesters and dissident behaviour were severely condemned by agents of the state. Among the protesters were women who were subjugated to gender-specific...Show moreDuring the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, protesters and dissident behaviour were severely condemned by agents of the state. Among the protesters were women who were subjugated to gender-specific violence to the criticism of many Egyptians. As awareness of misconduct towards women grew during the Egyptian revolution, it can be argued that the revolution also instigated a shift in thinking about the role of women in Egyptian society, since it opened up a new space for women to express themselves in the process of self-definition. Therefore, I will argue that a gendered analysis of the revolution will help us understand resistance better while interrogating the gender-dynamics in revolutionary Egypt. Hence, I will investigate how the revolution contributed to a shift in the construction of gender roles for women in Egypt. The research problem is understanding how the previously assigned gender roles, framed by nationalist ideologies, played a role in the way women were treated during the public protests. In order to answer this question, I will focus on Egypt under Mubarak and under the SCAF who reigned until 2012. Secondly, I will investigate the role of the state, its patriarchal character and its adherence to a security regime. Thirdly, I will analyse how women protesters were changing the status quo by their acts of protest and how it provoked a different way of thinking about women. The latter, has been aided by female graffiti artists too who used their graffiti as a way of 'speaking back'. This will be contextualised by an analysis of a selection of graffiti made by women during the Egyptian Revolution.Show less
This thesis analyzes song lyrics by Nina Simone, James Brown, and Public Enemy, and questions how they are radical in the context of the diachronic development of black civil rights activism. It...Show moreThis thesis analyzes song lyrics by Nina Simone, James Brown, and Public Enemy, and questions how they are radical in the context of the diachronic development of black civil rights activism. It straddles both very broad context and detailed analysis.Show less
This thesis researched how four large newspapers: People’s Daily（人民日报）and Southern Metropolis Daily （南方都市报）both from China, and Apple Daily （苹果日报）and Ta Kung Pao (大公报), based in Hong Kong, reported...Show moreThis thesis researched how four large newspapers: People’s Daily（人民日报）and Southern Metropolis Daily （南方都市报）both from China, and Apple Daily （苹果日报）and Ta Kung Pao (大公报), based in Hong Kong, reported on the massive demonstrations of mid-September 2014, following the decision of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee on August 31st to hold elections for the Chief Executive of Hong Kong in 2017.Show less
This paper primarily challenges realists’ viewpoints of Chinese actions during the Diaoyu/Senkaku territorial disputes in 2010 and 2012. Through economic interdependence theory, realists regard the...Show moreThis paper primarily challenges realists’ viewpoints of Chinese actions during the Diaoyu/Senkaku territorial disputes in 2010 and 2012. Through economic interdependence theory, realists regard the Chinese acts as a form of geopolitical bargaining and claim that China is becoming more aggressive and assertive. Liberalists’ perspectives on the other hand, fail to explain why the dispute has escalated. Alternately, realists’ viewpoints overlook a number of factors and overestimate the role of the Chinese government. Two case studies will point out that the Chinese government has unjustly been accused of i) imposing an embargo on rare earth elements to Japan in order to gain a geopolitical leverage in the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute in 2010 and ii) did not shape popular discontent primarily for the sake of coercing Japan in the bargaining process during the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute in 2012.Show less
