Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Public contestation'

This dissertation consists in an empirical study of the relationship between democracy and political confidence in East Asia, a region of our globe that goes from Mongolia to Indonesia, as Northern and Southern limits, and from Myanmar to Japan, as Western and Eastern borders. The study of individuals’ confidence in public institutions, often linked with the more general discussion about political legitimacy, arguably represents one of the most analysed and debated topics of political science. Nonetheless, the almost entirety of our knowledge about this relationship derives from theoretical discussion and empirical investigations about the impact, or potential impact, of citizens’ confidence in institutions on democratic viability. Although during the last two decades a burgeoning number of studies about the the interplay between institutions and individuals’ political confidence has been produced, studies investigating this relationship from the opposite perspective, namely the extent to which democracy impacts on individual confidence in institutions, has been seldom investigated. Institutional studies of political confidence have been increasingly focusing on the extent to which the economic or political performance of state institutions and authorities, or other features of the political system, such as the fairness, responsiveness, and honesty of political process, affect citizens’ confidence in institutions. In those few cases in which the essential features of a democratic system have been considered as potential antecedents of individual confidence in institutions these effects have been investigated in and across democratic regimes, especially in the European and North American contexts. As a consequence, what it is contended is that our knowledge of this relationship, and the largely positive view about said relationship, is to a large extent contingent on the contexts in which it has been studied. For this reason, this work steps out from the usual yard of normative debates and empirical studies about this topic, and focuses on East Asia, a region of our globe providing several opportunities (and challenges) to empirically investigate individual confidence in institutions and its interplay with political institutions. East Asia nowadays represents one of the most heterogeneous regions of our world on a plethora of structural and systemic features. Among these, East Asia presents a remarkable variety of political systems, ranging from single-party autocratic regimes to pluralistic liberal-democracies, and including several types of ‘hybrid’ regimes, fitting in neither categories. Since the late 1990s and early 2000s data about individual attitudes and behavior across this variety of regimes have been collected, allowing scholars and researchers to reassess, and in some cases challenge, issues and assumptions about a long list of political phenomena, including political confidence. In- deed, while individual-level studies of political confidence in this region have shown that the dynamics generating different degrees of confidence across individuals overlap with those seen in other regions of our globe, descriptive studies of cross-national variations of political confidence in this region have shown that individual confidence in institutions, during the last two decades, has been invariably higher in non-democratic regimes as compared to democratic countries. Several hypotheses and arguments, although scarcely investigated, have been developed in order to explain these aggregate regularities. Some authors attempted to explain these variations following socio-deterministic theories about an increasing mismatch between individual basic orientations to politics and the reality of their political systems determined by socioeconomic modernization, that is the so-called ‘critical citizens’ theory, or enduring cultural traditions, the so-called ‘Asian Values’ argument. Others have pointed their attention on differences in terms of (especially economic) performance of East Asian governments. Still others have called into question the reliability and validity of individual confidence measures in non-democratic settings. Few scholars have considered the idea that these differences may be related to structural characteristics of the political processes that differentiate democratic regimes from non-democratic ones. In this work, although accounting for alternative explanations both theoretically and empirically, this latter perspective is developed and investigated. Building on arguments and evidence concerning the effects of political competition outputs (namely, election results) on individual-level variations of confidence in institutions, and relying on the renowned theoretical and analytical comparative framework developed by Robert Dahl (1971) in its seminal study on political participation and opposition, this thesis aims to investigate how an essential characteristic of any political system, namely the extent to which a regime provides institutional guarantees for public contestation to a more or less broad share of its population, affects individuals’ confidence in institutions. In order to provide a rigorous, specific, but also comprehensive empirical assessment of this topic, this dissertation is structured as follows. Chapter 1 is dedicated to a theoretical and conceptual discussion about the notion of political confidence and the main explanations of its origins, starting from which the broad research question inspiring this dissertation is presented. About the former topic, building on relatively recent theoretical and conceptual developments, what it is contended is that the notion of confidence is conceptually distinct to the notion of trust, and the former should be preferred to the latter in order to conceptualize the relationship between individuals and public institutions (Ch. 1, Sect. 1.2.1). Furthermore, the relationship between this notion and the related concepts of regime legitimacy and political support is critically assessed in order to define the peculiar nature of the individual attitude under investigation (Ch. 1, Sect. 1.2.2). The chapter, then, continues with a reassessments of the second topic mentioned above, namely a review of theories and explanations of political confidence, based on the ubiquitous categorization of theories of political phenomena distinguishing between culturalist and institutionalist arguments (Ch. 1, Sect. 1.3). Building on these two sections the chapter ends with a discussion concerning the scope of these explanations, and briefly reviewing the debate about the relationship between democracy and political confidence (Ch. 1, Sect. 1.4). In particular, what is claimed is that, while providing opposite and to some extent irreconcilable perspectives about the determinants of political confidence, current theories and explanations of this phenomenon lack arguments assessing the systemic impact of democracy on individual confidence in institutions, for both theoretical reasons and the already mentioned focus of theoretical discussions and empirical investigation on democratic settings, driving to a contingent understanding of the relationship between democracy and political confidence. What it is contended, thus, is that for assessing this issue a different analytical strategy is needed. Chapter 2 is, thus, dedicated to developing the specific argument of this thesis (Ch. 2, Sect. 2.2), discussing the state of art of the empirical research dedicated to political confidence in East Asia, thus introducing the geopolitical context in which this work is situated (Ch. 2, Sect. 2.3), and finally presenting the research design adopted to investigate the main puzzle and related research questions of this research effort (Sect. 2.4). The first section (Sect. 2.2.1) clarifies which is the notion of democracy adopted in this study, that consists in Dahl’s (1971, 1989, 1998) notion of polyarchy and the theoretical and analytical framework that has been produced around this notion (e.g. Coppedge and Reinicke 1990; Coppedge et al. 2008; Teorell et al. 2019). The section then continues (Sect. 2.2.2) with an explanation of why varying levels of democracy are interpreted as variations of levels of public contestation, one of the two dimensions informing the notion of democracy used in this work. The following pages are then dedicated to a discussion about why and how variations of institutional features and dimensions identified by the notion of democracy used in this thesis can be related to varying levels of individuals’ confidence in institutions (Sect. 2.2.3). What it is contended is that variations of these attributes shape the structure of incentives and constraints affecting individuals assessments of institutions and authorities trustworthiness, and that higher degrees of public contestation are likely to produce both positive and negative incentives for individuals’ confidence in public institutions. The following section is then dedicated to the state of art of the study of political confidence in this region, that highlights the main findings and gaps about aggregate- level and individual-level studies of political confidence in this region. By doing so, in this section the East Asian context is presented and the opportunities and challenges given by the structural heterogeneity of this region are discussed, and the necessity of a study able to fill the the lack of contextual analyses of political confidence in this region is underlined. Then, Finally, the chapter ends presenting the specific research questions investigated in the following chapters and the research strategy employed to address these questions (Sect. 2.4.1), as well as the main individual-level and contextual-level data bases of this empirical study (Sect. 2.4.2). The following three chapters of the thesis (Chs. 3, 4, and 5) consist in the three sets of empirical analyses used to address the research questions and the main hypothesis grounding this work. Chapter 3 presents a dimensionality analysis of political confidence in East Asia. What it is claimed is that in order to properly analyse the relationship between democracy and political confidence, what is needed is a prior assessment of whether East Asians confidence in institutions represent a single and general assessment of public institutions, or rather a multidimensional attitude (an assessment seldom performed in previous research). Consequently, this chapter, building on the ongoing debate about political confidence dimensionality in Europe (Ch. 3, Sect. 3.2), and after presenting the main expectations derived by translating this debate in investigates this issue through the means of exploratory and (multi-group) confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA), applied to (almost) all the studies composing the first four rounds of the ABS (Ch. 3, Sect. 3.3). The main finding of this chapter is that, despite the crucial diversities of the countries included in this study on a series of structural factors potentially affecting the way in which East Asians organize their attitudes toward public institutions, a common factor structure of political confidence in this region can be found, and that this configuration consists in a two-dimensional conception distinguishing between confidence in political institutions (e.g. national governments and national assemblies) and confidence in implementative institutions (e.g. civil services and police forces). Chapter 4 is then dedicated to an analysis of these two types of political confidence in the aggregate. In the first part of the chapter, a descriptive analysis of East Asians’ confidence in both political and implementative institutions is provided (Ch. 4, Sect. 4.2). In this part the cross-national variations of political confidence already highlighted by previous research are presented, although in a broader picture, spanning across approximately fifteen years of evidence provided by the ABS data. The stable differences between East Asian countries are then assessed through a bivariate and multivariate correlational analyses, performed in order to test alternative explanations of these cross-national patterns (Ch. 4, Sect. 4.4 and Sect. 4.5). What it is shown is that the selected indicator of political contestation levels consistently negatively correlates with the index dedicated to ABS respondents’ political confidence, representing the best predictor of cross-national variations of aggregate levels of these attitudes, outperforming all the alternative explanations. What the chapter shows, however, is that the impact of contestation on aggregate levels of political confidence is much stronger for confidence in political institutions as compared to confidence in implementative ones. Chapter 5 then represents the last empirical chapter of this dissertation, and presents a multilevel analysis of political confidence, spanning across the second, third, and fourth rounds of the ABS, and providing an assessment of both individual-level and contextual-level determinants of political confidence, and their interplay. After providing hypotheses concerning the relationship between relevant individual-level antecedents of political confidence as identified by previous research, and expectations concerning the direct and indirect effect of the contextual variable of interest (Ch. 5, Sect. 5.2), a series of hierarchical linear regression models (HLMs) are performed in order to account for both individual-level and contextual-level variation of political confidence (Ch. 5, Sect. 5.4). What these models provide is, first, a reassessment of previous findings about the direct effect of political contestation on confidence in political institutions and confidence in implementative institutions, partially confirming previous results, but also highlighting even more the different impact of political contestation on the two indices of political confidence, strong and statistically significant for average levels of confidence in political institutions, while much weaker and even not significant in affecting confidence in implementative ones. Second, the HLMs return a clear picture about the individual-level determinants of political confidence in this region, showing how institutional performance indicators represent the best individual-level predictors of confidence across all the contexts considered, and how their effects vary according to the type of political confidence taken into account. Third, these models show how the indirect effect of political contestation, considered as a moderating factor of the effect of some individual-level determinants, operates differently according to the type of political confidence considered, moderating the effect of individual-level variables when considering confidence in implementative institutions but not in the case of the other type investigated in this work. The chapter, hence, returns a rather puzzling scenario that is further discussed in the last section of this chapter (Ch. 5, Sect. 5.5). The dissertation, then, concludes with a reassessment of the main findings proposed in previous chapters, the limitations of the study, and the main implications for the empirical study of political confidence in East Asia and beyond.

The central arguments in this thesis rest on two premises. Firstly language and context are intimately bound up in the social construction of workplace gender inequalities. Secondly, organisational understandings and management of women�s access to employment opportunities and rewards in modern bureaucratic organisations are constituted through discourses or systems of organisational knowledges, practices and rules of organising. This study uses the concept of discourse to account for the productive and powerful role of knowledge and language practices in constituting the organisational contexts and meanings through which people make sense of and experience complex organisations.

In the 1990s, New Zealand's curriculum for the compulsory schooling sector was to undergo complete revision following the administrative reforms of the 1980s. The development of each new curriculum document followed a business model in which the Ministry of Education put the development process out for competitive tender. The successful bidders were to complete their tasks to strict Ministry guidelines and under the scrutiny of the Ministry's Curriculum Review Committee and the Minister's Policy Advisory Group. After the completion of a draft version, public consultation and school trials, a final curriculum document would be prepared and mandated as the legal curriculum requirements for New Zealand government-funded schools. The process that the fifth document, Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum, was to undergo proved to be elongated and controversial. As such, it provides a case study through which to examine, critique and theorise the nature of curriculum construction at a macro-level, in this case, at a national level. This study of the development of Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum illuminates three broad themes in curriculum construction - context, complexity and contestation. These themes arise from the literature and are reinforced by the study's findings. The study set out to: provide detailed description and analysis of an example of curriculum construction; use the selected case study to demonstrate the importance of the broader contexts within which curriculum construction occurs; problematise the notion of curriculum construction by highlighting the complexities in and around the process; articulate the contested nature of selecting and presenting curriculum contents; and provide insights into the personal and affective side of involvement in a macrolevel curriculum construction process. There are three main sources of data - the process itself, the products (three versions of Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum) and the people involved. A range of data gathering methods is used from primarily historical and ethnographic research within a qualitative framework. The main data gathering tools are archival research, document analysis and open-ended interviewing. As the data are mainly textual--either as original documents or created texts, as in interview transcripts-analytic strategies include content, thematic, semiotic and discourse analysis. Social constructionism (Burr, 1995) provides a unifying theoretical approach to frame the research design and analysis. In this dissertation, the background to the study, the findings and the discussion are interwoven and presented through three story strands - institutional, contextual and personal. The institutional strand aims to tell "what happened". The contextual strand aims to explain "why things happened as they did", "in what circumstances" and "why this might be important". The personal strand aims to give more prominence to the role of individuals in such a process, that is, "who was involved, how did individuals impact upon curriculum construction and how did the process impact upon them?" The layout of the dissertation also highlights the interwoven and complex nature of the ideas being explored. It is necessary to push the boundaries of a more traditional format to keep the notions of complexity and contestation to the fore. This manifests itself in the way that the chapter headings are based around the three story strands, the literature is integrated throughout the study and multi-layered stories and multiple interpretations are given. Within this framework, the usual features of a conventional research report - background, context, literature, theoretical underpinnings, methodological choices, findings and discussion - are still to be found but some liberty is taken to "open up the complications that [would] have been smoothed over" (Stronach & MacLure, 1997, p. 5) in more traditional dissertations. The findings are analysed and presented in a variety of ways - as a chronology and a set of critical incidents to outline the process, as textual and visual analysis to examine the products, and through personal stories to illuminate the experiences of the people involved. Theorising from the data is problematised by using a range of theoretical explanations before proffering a synthesised model of curriculum construction as a multidimensional process. The findings from this study form two clusters - those that relate to the specific case study (the development of Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum) and those that provide deeper understanding of the broader nature of curriculum construction. The two sets of findings also demonstrate the interrelated nature of the three data sources - the process, the products and the people. In relation to the specific case study, there is clear evidence of the acceptance of social studies as a curriculum area in New Zealand with its own identity and integrity. The study also documents the historical development of social studies as a curriculum area and provides a detailed account of the contested nature of the development of the current social studies curriculum statement Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum. The other finding, relating specifically to the New Zealand context but which should give heart to practitioners everywhere, is the resilience of committed educators when faced with opposing ideological forces determined to undermine their position. This is exemplified in this case study by the social studies community's ability to reclaim control over the contents of the curriculum despite strong opposition from the Business Roundtable and other neo-liberal and neo-conservative forces. What is also revealed is that in order to achieve an acceptable outcome, a curriculum construction process needs both consultation and critique. Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum is all the stronger as a product because of the depth of the surrounding debate and this, in turn, strengthened the credibility of both the curriculum area and its supporters. The findings that relate to broader notions of curriculum construction either confirm key themes from the literature, expand upon some that are less explicit or offer new insights. The three touchstones of this study - context, complexity and contestation - were constantly reinforced through the gathering and analysis of the data, and confirmed by the findings. That curriculum construction is subject to a range of contextual factors - historical, social, cultural, political, economic and/or educational; that the process is complex and multi-layered; that the process is highly political and contested; and that the process and products are influenced by powerful individuals and groups both inside and outside the process, are all strongly confirmed by, and even consolidated in, this study. Notions alluded to in the literature that find stronger expression in this study relate to the nature of contestation throughout the process of curriculum construction. A model using Bourdieu's notions of field, capital and habitus (after Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) allows stronger articulation of features such as polarisation, factionalisation, the forging of alliances and the fluid status of participants. The data reveal the curriculum construction process in a constant state of flux and subject to much serendipity. The findings also strengthen the notion that the products of a curriculum construction process are not ends in themselves but reveal much about the nature of the contestation and, indeed, lay the groundwork for future contested interpretations. New insights that arise from this study include an articulation of the strategies, such as compromise, contingency and expediency, that participants use to achieve their ends. These are often at the expense of participants' underpinning principles or adherence to particular curriculum development models. Significant insights come from the in-depth investigation of the emotional side of curriculum construction. The data reveal that the struggle for control over curriculum contents is an emotionally-charged process; that participants in the process wrestle with the differences between their own personal platforms, their ideological influences, the groups they represent and the requirements of the task; that contestation occurs between those setting and those completing the task, especially in relationship to professional decision-making and intellectual ownership; and that no consideration is given to the emotional cost of involvement in such large-scale curriculum construction processes. In summary, context shapes the unique nature of curriculum construction processes and products. If an understanding of these factors is tempered with an awareness of the complex and multi-dimensional nature of curriculum construction this will strengthen the process and could lessen the negative effects of ideologically-motivated or emotionally-charged involvement in the process. Finally, as contestation in curriculum construction is unavoidable in such high-stakes processes, consultation and critique should be seen as opportunities (rather than threats), to enhance the credibility of the final product.

De la construction de centrales jusqu’au traitement des déchets radioactifs, le nucléaire ne cesse de susciter les désaccords. La thèse se focalise sur le cas de la Lorraine, qui entre dans le nucléaire français dès 1978 avec la centrale de Cattenom (Moselle) et poursuit son développement avec le projet de centre de stockage de déchets radioactifs Cigéo (Meuse/Haute-Marne). Situé à l’échelle des territoires, le travail montre comment les populations essaient d’empêcher ces projets. Cette approche questionne l’opposition classique entre « pro » et « anti » nucléaires, pour observer ce qui pose problème à ceux qui décident d’entrer dans la contestation. Pour cela, la notion de désaccord montre la diversité des oppositions à Cattenom et Cigéo, qui ne sont pas toujours menées par des écologistes. Selon leur forme, les désaccords induisent une certaine perception des situations, orientent les conduites des acteurs, produisent du sens pour ceux qui y participent ou y assistent par médias interposés. Menée en sciences de l’information et de la communication, la thèse brosse les régimes de désaccord qui marquent la contestation du nucléaire en Lorraine depuis quarante ans. Celle-ci s’organise autour de deux pôles : les controverses des « citoyens-enquêteurs » et les polémiques de militants occupants le territoire. L’enquête de terrain couplée au corpus de documents médiatiques et numériques montre que les acteurs s’expriment dans des arènes qui orientent l’action et les discours. Enfin, l’évolution de la communication vers des formes narratives comme le film ou le jeu vidéo traduisent une volonté de raconter l’histoire passée et à venir de la controverse
From the building of power plants through nuclear waste management, the nuclear energy never stops to cause disagreements. The thesis focus on Lorraine’s case, which stepped into the French nuclear program since 1978 with Cattenom nuclear plant (in Moselle) and continues its development with the nuclear radioactive waste disposal Cigéo (in Meuse/Haute-Marne).From the scale of territories, the work shows how people try to impeach those projects. This approach examines the classic opposition between "pro" and "anti" nuclear people. To achieve this, the notion of disagreement the diversity of Cattenom and Cigéo protests, which aren’t always led by ecologists. Depending their form, disagreements have an impact on the perception of situations, the actor’s behaviors, and produce sens for those participating or watching through media. Done in media and communication studies, the thesis covers the disagreement schemes of forty years of nuclear protest in Lorraine. These protests are built around two poles: “citizens-investigators’” controversies and activists occupiers’ polemics. The field work associated to the collection of media and digital documents shows that actors express themselves in arenas, which impact their action and discourses. Finally, communication evolves towards narrative forms, such as video and video games. It shows that actors will to tell the controversy’s past and future

Why and how do ordinary citizens lacking previous activist experience, come, at certain times, to stage protests, block roads, close public administrations, or occupy public spaces, in order to reclaim what they consider is their right? In Egypt, ordinary people have increasingly, albeit occasionally, endorsed protest as a means to press demands, as shown by a continuous frequency of popular mobilisations despite a very repressive context since July 2013. However, despite the persistence of serious grievances and limited results, most of these collective actions have not exceeded the local scale, remaining dispersed, discontinuous and ephemeral. This thesis argues that beyond repression and other authoritarian constraints, which only provide a partial explanation, most popular mobilisations are also prevented from expanding by the vicissitudes of leadership on the one hand, and a set of local sociocultural features on the other. Beyond traditional social movement studies, which mainly focused on urban and organised movements, this thesis analyses ordinary people’s isolated protests characterised by a basic organisation and a strong local anchorage. Based on fieldwork in southern Upper Egypt between January 2014 and April 2015, it provides an account of recent local dynamics of (de)mobilisation. Focusing on these discontinuous, dispersed and ephemeral forms of activism, it sheds light on the factors that interact in preventing a widening of local collective action. These factors include leaders’ limited ambitions, experience, and difficulties in coordinating in a highly authoritarian environment; activists’ co-optation; local logics of patronage and loyalties; gender, generational and other social divisions; and perceptions of cultural identity. The thesis also establishes that current national campaigns, mainly revolutionary change, labour protests and the proMuslim Brotherhood protest movement, do not appeal to the majority due to their lack of alternative political projects and perceived exclusionary character. This ultimately suggests why the beginning of a revolution was suspended.

A crucial contemporary public health issue is the construction and contestation of the relevance of the natural world to human health. Taking a critical approach, this thesis examines how the natural environment as a health determinant is positioned in relation to the 'social' within social epidemiological studies of health, illness and disease. Using conceptual and empirical forms of enquiry, this study shows how current constructions of natural environmental health drivers contour public health practice in the UK and that by challenging the limits of existing structures, innovative responses emerge, which can generate new frameworks for health policy and practice. Having identified a lacuna in research on the 'natural' environment in medical sociology, this inductive qualitative research project brings into conversation the findings from extensive desk and field research. Specially, a study of the elaboration of environmental health discourses within the UK public health policy arena and disciplinary wide discourse analyses of key academic journals are read together to describe the discursive practices shaping environmental public health work in the UK. Linking theory to practice, data from in-depth interviews with sixty health professionals working on health and the environment in the UK and internationally are used to investigate how public health practitioners produce the environment within their work remits. The research breaks ground for further social scientific studies of health and the environment and in particular substantiates the call for an extended notion of the 'environment' using ecological principles. Methodologically, the interdisciplinary reach of this research draws attention to the tensions that arise when working across the medical, natural and social sciences. Practical and philosophical questions about the challenge of expanding the sociological imagination in the contemporary moment are also considered. Empirically, to medical sociology the 'EcoBioPsychoSocial' framework is offered as a tool for studying health at the nexus between the 'social' and the 'natural environment.' Finally, the ways informal public health institutions are serving as 'invisible' forces impeding the uptake of prevention oriented environmental health policies are findings offered to the health policy arena.

Malgré leur position défavorable dans les hiérarchies du pouvoir, les jeunesjouent un rôle majeur dans les processus de changement sociopolitique qui ontcours dans la société burkinabè. Ce groupe social semble alors constituer un outilefficace d’analyse du politique et, plus précisément, des rapports de contestation etde domination qui sont à l’oeuvre au Burkina Faso. En effet, les jeunes développentde multiples stratégies d’inscription dans l’espace public qui constituent, à desdegrés et selon des modalités différentes, des formes de contestation de l’ordrepolitique. Ainsi, en nous appuyant sur trois catégories de jeunesse (les étudiantssyndiqués, les jeunes des rues et les jeunes rappeurs ou adeptes de hip-hop), nousavons cherché à interroger, dans une perspective diachronique, la nature desrapports de domination à l’oeuvre dans la société burkinabè. Nous constatons quela portée limitée de ces formes de contestation de l’ordre établi s’explique engrande partie par le contexte hégémonique dans lequel elles s’inscrivent. Ainsi, lesressorts de la domination caractéristiques de l’ordre politique actuel reposent,selon nous, sur une « politique de la médiation » et sur une stratégie de« cooptation néo-patrimoniale » qui permettent le désamorçage des tensions et lerèglement des conflits, selon des procédures bien précises, avec pour objectif lapréservation de l’image consensuelle de l’ordre politique. Ces deux dimensionsconstituent, selon nous, les piliers d’une « culture politique » qui irradie unemultitude d’espaces sociaux et qui permet un échange médiatisé et permanent entredirigeants et dirigés
In spite of their unfavourable position in the hierarchies of power, youngpeople play a major role in the processes of social political change, which occur inthe Burkina Faso society. Hence, this social group seems to be a good instrumentto efficiently analyse policy, and moreover the processes of contestation anddomination at work in Burkina Faso. Indeed, young people develop numerousstrategies carried out in public places, which to varying degrees and termsconstitute forms of contestation against the political order. Thus by relying onthree categories of youth (unionised students, street youth, and young rappers orfollowers of the hip-hop movement), we sought to examine in a diachronicperspective, the nature of relationships of dominance at work in the Burkina Fasosociety. We find that the limited impact of these forms of contestations against theestablished order can be largely explained by the hegemonic context in which theyarise. Therefore, in our mind, the characteristic domination of the current politicalorder are based on “the strategies of mediation” and “neo-patrimonial cooptation”,which diffuse tensions and regulate conflicts, according to very precise procedures,with the aim to preserve the consensual image of the political culture. In ouropinion, these two dimensions constitute the pillars of a “political culture”, whichspreads out from a multitude of social spaces and creates a permanent, mediatisedexchange between rulers and those who are ruled

I suggest that asking the question of whether to refuse or celebrate what is labeled as the Arab-Muslim doll today would result in proposing a false argument. What is relevant here instead, are the interdisciplinary forces embodied in this object as a whole. In the field of cultural studies, the forces that matter are not embodied only in the object itself, but also in the dimensions circulating around and expanding from this object and their critical roles within different contexts. Thus the significance of the Arab Muslim doll is crucially in its complex construction and position within contemporary Lebanon. What matters are the multiple ways in which this politically-charged object interacts with and affects its particular settings. It is not a coincidence that an Arab Muslim doll appears on the market shelves in these unfortunate times that the region is witnessing. Nonetheless, it is the specific existence of this doll within the Arab Muslim contestation in current Lebanon that poses questions on the pertinence and role of this object. The hallmark of this doll is in being a polymorphous object metonym to the flexibility, cultural hybridization and fluidity of contemporary Lebanon.

Ce travail propose une analyse de la mobilisation citoyenne autour du projet de LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse sur une période de dix ans. La mise en place du débat public par la CNDP en 2005 constitue une étape permettant à la population de prendre connaissance de l'existence d'un projet LGV. Ce premier débat public n'engage aucun tracé précis, l'enjeu est essentiellement de statuer sur l'opportunité d'une LGV entre Bordeaux et Toulouse. Progressivement, une mobilisation se structure. Cependant, nous montrons que la mobilisation n'est pas homogène tout au long du tracé et dépend du contexte local. Il n'y a que dans le Bordelais où les citoyens se mobilisent et participent au débat public organisé par la CNDP pour contester le projet LGV. En 2009, le maître d'ouvrage, RFF, met en place un nouveau dispositif participatif : la concertation dite " GPSO " (Grand Projet du Sud-Ouest). L'enjeu de cette nouvelle procédure participative vise, cette fois-ci, l'élaboration d'un tracé précis. La proposition d'un tracé par le maître d'ouvrage contribue à généraliser la contestation relative à la LGV au-delà du Bordelais. En effet, lors du débat public de 2005 la question de l'opportunité du projet a été tranchée, ce que remettent en cause les groupes civiques de Bordeaux à Toulouse. Dans le Lot-et-Garonne, notamment, de nombreuses associations d'opposants voient le jour et s'organisent en collectif, la Coordination 47. Ces associations se structurent et s'entendent pour proposer un projet alternatif. Contrairement au maître d'ouvrage qui souhaite la création de nouvelles voies, la Coordination 47 défend, quant à elle, la possibilité de réhabiliter les voies existantes. La Coordination 47 s'engage alors dans d'importantes actions de sensibilisation de la population afin de favoriser la participation des citoyens à l'enquête publique qui se déroule en 2014. Les militants ont obtenu gain de cause : la participation du " public " a été soutenue et la commission d'enquête a rendu un avis défavorable. A ce jour, le gouvernement n'a pas encore rendu sa décision
This work proposes an analysis of the mobilization citizen around the project of "LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse" over a period of ten years. The implementation of the public debate by CNDP in 2005 establishes a stage allowing the population to acquaint with the existence of a project LGV. This first public debate engages no precise plan, the stake is essentially to rule on the opportunity of a LGV between Bordeaux and Toulouse. Gradually, a mobilization forms itself. However, we show that the mobilization is not homogeneous throughout the plan and depends on the local context. There are that in the "Bordelais" only the citizens mobilize and participate in the public debate organized by CNDP to dispute the LGV project. In 2009, the project owner, RFF, sets up a new participative procedure: the said dialogue "GPSO" (Big Project of the Southwest). The stake in this new participative procedure aims, this time, at the elaboration of a precise plan. The proposal of a plan by project owner contributes to generalize the contesting relative to the LGV beyond the "Bordelais". Indeed, during the public debate of 2005 the question of the opportunity of the project was cut, what question the civic groups from Bordeaux to Toulouse. In Lot-et-Garonne, in particular, a lot of opponents associations are born and get organized in collective, the Coordination 47. These associations form themselves and get on to propose an alternative project. Contrary to the project owner who wishes the creation of new ways, the Coordination 47 defends the possibility of rehabilitating the existing ways. The Coordination 47 makes a commitment then in important awareness-raising activities of the population to favor the participation of the citizens in the public inquiry which takes place in 2014. The activists were proved right: the participation of the "public" was supported and the commission of inquiry returned an unfavorable opinion. To date, the government has not taken its decision yet

Malgré leur position défavorable dans les hiérarchies du pouvoir, les jeunes jouent un rôle majeur dans les processus de changement sociopolitique qui ont cours dans la société burkinabè. Ce groupe social semble alors constituer un outil efficace d'analyse du politique et, plus précisément, des rapports de contestation et de domination qui sont à l'oeuvre au Burkina Faso. En effet, les jeunes développent de multiples stratégies d'inscription dans l'espace public qui constituent, à des degrés et selon des modalités différentes, des formes de contestation de l'ordre politique. Ainsi, en nous appuyant sur trois catégories de jeunesse (les étudiants syndiqués, les jeunes des rues et les jeunes rappeurs ou adeptes de hip-hop), nous avons cherché à interroger, dans une perspective diachronique, la nature des rapports de domination à l'oeuvre dans la société burkinabè. Nous constatons que la portée limitée de ces formes de contestation de l'ordre établi s'explique en grande partie par le contexte hégémonique dans lequel elles s'inscrivent. Ainsi, les ressorts de la domination caractéristiques de l'ordre politique actuel reposent, selon nous, sur une " politique de la médiation " et sur une stratégie de " cooptation néo-patrimoniale " qui permettent le désamorçage des tensions et le règlement des conflits, selon des procédures bien précises, avec pour objectif la préservation de l'image consensuelle de l'ordre politique. Ces deux dimensions constituent, selon nous, les piliers d'une " culture politique " qui irradie une multitude d'espaces sociaux et qui permet un échange médiatisé et permanent entre dirigeants et dirigés.

[Truncated abstract] The aim of this study was to analyse the changing dynamics within and between government and non-government education sectors in relation to the Curriculum Framework (CF) policy in Western Australia (WA) from 1995 to 2004. The Curriculum Council was established by an act of State Parliament in 1997 to oversee the development and enactment of the CF, which was released in 1998. A stated aim of the CF policy was to unify the education sectors through a shared curriculum. The WA State government mandated that all schools, both government and non-government, demonstrate compliance by 2004. This was the first time that curriculum was mandated for non-government schools, therefore the dynamics within and between the education sectors were in an accelerated state of transformation in the period of study. The timeframe for the research represented the period from policy inception (1995) to the deadline for policy enactment for Kindergarten to Year 10 (2004). However, given the continually evolving and increasingly politicised nature of curriculum policy processes in WA, this thesis also provides an extended analysis of policy changes to the time of thesis submission in 2007 when the abolition of the Curriculum Council was formally announced - a decade after it was established. ... The research reported in this thesis draws on both critical theory and post-structuralist approaches to policy analysis within a broader framework of policy network theory. Policy network theory is used to bring the macro focus of critical theory and the micro focus of post-structuralism together in order to highlight power issues at all levels of the policy trajectory. Power dynamics within a policy network are fluid and multidimensional, and power struggles are characteristic at all levels. This study revealed significant power differentials between government and non-government education sectors caused by structural and cultural differences. Differences in autonomy between the education sectors meant that those policy actors within the non-government sector were more empowered to navigate the competing and conflicting forms of accountabilities that emerged from the changes to WA curriculum policy. Despite both generalised discourses of blurring public/private boundaries within the context of neoliberal globalisation and specific CF goals of bringing the sectors together, the boundaries continue to exist. Further, there is much strategising about how to remain distinct within the context of increased market choice. This study makes a unique and significant contribution to the understanding of policy processes surrounding the development and enactment of the CF in WA and the implications for the changing dynamics within and between the education sectors. Emergent themes and findings may potentially be used as a basis for contrast and comparison in other contexts. The research contributes to policy theory by arguing for closer attention to be paid to power dynamics between localised agency in particular policy spaces and the state-imposed constraints.

Cette thèse de Doctorat s’articule autour de trois concepts-clés : Espace, Récit et Discours. Elle se fonde sur un corpus principal et significatif de six films tunisiens, tous réalisés pendant les années 1970, période d’effervescence politique, sociale et culturelle et de grands mouvements sociaux. La recherche est ainsi centrée sur l’analyse des différents modes de présence des lieux, tels qu’ils ont été investis par les événements liés à cette période particulière et par les personnages qui ont contribué à les animer, porteurs de différents points de vue et registres narratifs. Face au discours dominant et coercitif du pouvoir en place, un contre-discours est en effet né et s’est développé, porté par des voix tant masculines que féminines qui contestaient la mainmise du régime de Bourguiba, président de la République tunisienne à cette époque, tant sur les institutions, associations que sur la vie publique tunisienne en général. Conciliant pour la plupart de ses acteurs à la fois offensive politique et langage esthétique maitrisé, le cinéma tunisien de ces années 1970 a été le principal catalyseur d’une contestation politique et sociale dont les étudiants, des associations syndicales et culturelles, des militants de gauche ont été par ailleurs les porte-drapeau. En ce sens, il a pu constituer ce que nous considérons comme un espace public autonome, à la fois d’accueil et de co-construction d’une expression publique tunisienne exemplaire
This doctoral dissertation hangs on three key concepts : Space, Narrative and Speech. It is focused on a main and significant body of six Tunisian films, every one made during the 1970s, a period of political, social and cultural effervescence and great social movements. So, the research is thus centered on the analysis of the different modes of presence on the scene, as they were invested by people who contributed to animate them, from different points of view and narrative performances. Faced with the dominant and coercive discourse of the established power, a counter-speech was indeed born and developed, carried by both male and female voices that challenged the political and social control of the regime of Bourguiba, President of the Republic of Tunisia at that time, both on institutions, associations and Tunisian ever-day life in general. For most of them, mixing both political offensive and mastered aesthetic language, the Tunisian cinema of the 1970s was the main catalyst for a political and social challenge that students, trade union, cultural associations, and leftist activists were also taking the lead. In this sense, it has been able to constitute what we consider as an autonomous public sphere, both welcoming and co-constructing an exemplary Tunisian public expression
Esta disertación doctoral se articula en torno a tres conceptos clave : espacio, narrativa y discurso. Se basa en un cuerpo principal y significativa de las seis películas de Túnez, todos hechos en la década de 1970, un período de agitación política, social y cultural y de grandes movimientos sociales. La investigación se centra tanto en el análisis de los diferentes modos de presencia del lugar, ya que se han invertido por los eventos relacionados con este período en particular y los personajes que contribuyeron a animar, a partir de diferentes puntos de vista y registros narrativos. Dado el discurso dominante y los poderes coercitivos fácticos, un contra-discurso hecho nace y se desarrolla, llevado por los dos voces masculinas y femeninas que desafían el dominio del régimen de Bourguiba, Presidente de la República de Túnez en este momento, en las instituciones, asociaciones así como la vida tunecina en general. La mayoría de sus cineastas ha sabido combinar ofensiva política y lenguaje estético dominado. Así, el cine tunecino de estos década de 1970 fue el principal catalizador de la protesta política y social que los estudiantes, sindicatos, asociaciones culturales, activistas de izquierda también fueron adalides. En este sentido, podría ser lo que consideramos como un espacio público independiente, tanto para acoger y co-construir una expresión pública tunecina ejaemplar

This thesis aims to map what arguments are used by the two biggest parties in Swedish politics, The Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party, when discussing European politics in the European Affairs Committee (EAC) of the Swedish parliament. In order to realise this, frames used by the party representatives in the committee have been analysed. With the typology of Helbling et. al. (2010), a categorisation of four frames is applied, where each frame corresponds with a side of the left-right or the GAL-TAN-dimension. The study is structured by a number of hypotheses constructed based on findings of previous research, comparing both between the parties and changes over time. The results are assessed in relative terms, meaning that the study focuses on the parties’ relative use of frames rather than the absolute. All hypotheses find full or partial support, confirming expectations of previous research made on other European countries. However, some surprising results are found, highlighting new potential research questions for future studies.

This project investigates the way that larger power structures and highly specific site architectures affect voices of contestation through a situated ethnographic study of the #BlackLivesMatter movement on Tumblr. Rather than a comprehensive study, this project looks at how protesters may utilize high media and social network literacy to strategically make their voices heard by seemingly isolated and uninvolved users. Rather than ignorant to the structures around them, the specifics of these choices or e-tactics demonstrate a degree of awareness by protesters of larger cultural forces that may limit or constrain their ability to be heard. Through this lens, this thesis compares the role of Tumblr and other social sites as arenas for democratic dialogue and the insertion of previously marginalized peoples and narratives. The use of blogs by #BlackLivesMatter protesters and other counter-hegemonic movements as a realm for civic journalism and “counter media-errorism” is also analyzed. Ultimately, this project shows a clear need for further ethnographic study on the particulars of Internet and information and communication technology structures and how activists pursue social change within these structures.

The events of the 2015 Fees Must Fall movement generated a lively debate in the South African public sphere, one which included multiple interest groups and constituencies. The aim of this dissertation is to critically analyse the public debate that arose around the 2015 Fees Must Fall movement. I approach this debate through the frame of the story by focussing on narratives published in mainstream print media, in student media and on the social media sites, Facebook and Twitter. Aside from more conventional news reportage, I also look at interventions by student activists, government, universities, and other public commentators including parents, political analysts, cultural and religious groups and onlookers. As a literary scholar, I look at the ways in which these events were narrated and the values that were encoded in the tellings. The fact that these events could and were interpreted, explained and rationalised in a variety of ways points to the complexity of truth and meaning-making. However, the point is not to search for the ‘truth’ about what happened but rather to consider the kinds of meanings that were constructed and what these might reveal about the broader social, economic and political landscape in post-apartheid South Africa, including prevailing attitudes, assumptions and myths. Given the prominence of women both in the events themselves and in the ways they were narrated, I will also pay particular attention to the role of gender in the narration of the events and the significance given to women’s involvement in the protests. I start my project by considering how protests have come to be represented in media and discuss the relevance of story-telling as a means of sense-making. I analyse first the accounts that focussed specifically on blame-placement as a way to explain the events. I argue that this blame placement reveals the fractured nature of South Africa. From here I move to accounts that specifically discussed the way in which the movement as a whole should be characterised. I draw attention to the tendency to personalise the movement vs. the trend of figuring it as an act of social justice for a society still plagued by inequality and oppression. I then look at the accounts that concentrated on the individuals in the movement and how they should be characterised, specifically looking at the various judgements of role-players’ behaviour. In concluding, I discuss the various issues and questions the public debate raised and what this suggests about the state of post-apartheid South Africa. Finally, I make a claim for the importance of story-telling as a way to make sense of the particular historical moment.
Mini Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2017.
English
MA
Unrestricted

C’est entre 1960 et la fin des années 1980 que se situe en France la grande période du bouleversement architectural qui donne naissance au quartier d’affaires de La Défense. L’histoire de cette monumentale opération d’aménagement de « l’Ouest Parisien » vue par les journalistes révèle trois étapes dans l’évolution de ce projet qui vise à doter la capitale d’un « Manhattan français », ou mieux trois états forts constitutifs d’opinion successifs : celui de l’enthousiasme qui a présidé à la présentation par l’EPAD en 1964 du premier plan de masse de l’opération et à ses premières réalisations sur le terrain, celui du doute et de la contestation liés à l’histoire agitée qu’a connu durant les années 1970 ce chantier gigantesque alors en proie aux turbulences d’une crise économique qui en hypothèque l’avenir et en trouble le dessein final, celui de l’indéniable adhésion à la réussite d’un projet qu’a illustré l’érection en 1989 de la « Grande Arche de La Défense ». Savoir ce que les journalistes ont pensé pour comprendre l’évolution de « La Défense » est ainsi la première raison de l’investigation historique menée à propos de ce quartier à l’urbanisme révolutionnaire. Mais il en est une seconde, car l’histoire n’est pas seulement une pourvoyeuse du présent ; elle est aussi génératrice de représentations dont le retentissement joue de concert avec l’évènement objectivement établi. Et, à ce titre, l’étude de « La Défense » comme phénomène historique de cristallisation de l’opinion de la presse offre un exemple particulièrement net de l’apport qu’un pôle d’attraction aussi efficace que le quartier de « La Défense » fournit à l’histoire contemporaine de l’urbanisme. Ainsi, après avoir décrit le processus historique révélé par le regard de la presse, l’interprétation des représentations de la ville nouvelle sera l’occasion de démontrer que la réalisation du quartier de La Défense a été davantage concernée par la conscience de l’évènement que par l’évènement lui-même dès lors que cette opération constituait, par sa nature propre, un phénomène médiatique de première grandeur
It is between 1960 and the end of the 1980s that lies in France the great period of the architectural shift that gives birth to the La Défense business district. The history of this monumental “Ouest Parisien” planning operation seen by journalists reveals three stages in the evolution of this project which aims to establish the capital of a “French Manhattan”, or better three strong constituent states of opinion successive : one of enthusiasm which presided over the presentation by EPAD in 1964 of the first mass of the operation plan and its first achievements on the ground, that of doubt and contestation related to the turbulent history that has experienced during the 1970s this construction giant while embroiled in the turbulence of an economic crisis that threatens the future and disorder the final design, one of the undeniable accession to the success of a project that illustrated the erection in 1989 of the “Grande Arche of La Défense”. Know what journalists thought to understand the evolution of “La Défense” is the first reason for the historical investigation about this revolutionary urban district. But it is one second, because the story is not just a purveyor of the present ; it is also generator of representations which the impact play in conjunction with the objectively established event. And, as such, the study of “La Défense” as a historical phenomenon of crystallization of the opinion Press provides an example particularly net of the contribution as a pole of attraction as effective “La Défense” district provides to the contemporary history of urbanism. Thus, after describing the historical process revealed by the gaze of the press, the interpretation of the representations of the city new will be an opportunity to demonstrate that the achievement of “La Défense” headquarters was more concerned by the awareness of the event by the event itself as this operation was, by its very nature, a media phenomenon of the first magnitude

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
Informal sector operators in many cities of the global South face extensive harassment, criminalization and restricted access to public spaces despite the important role the sector is playing in urban development. Using Lefebvre’s theory of right to the city the study aimed to investigate how the city of Masvingo has embraced urban informality. The study also examined how informal sector operators in the city of Masvingo have been accessing –urban space and creating opportunities for the informal sector to access such space. The study also examined how the provision of essential services in the city has been extended to the people in the informal sector as a way of granting them their right to urban social and infrastructural services. The research took a survey design where a cross section of Masvingo city, including the city centre, residential areas and industrial areas, was sampled for the study. Methodologically the research used a mixed method approach to data collection and analysis, where both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. A questionnaire survey constituted the quantitative component of the study and it was administered to the informal sector operators, In-depth interviews and field observations were at the core of the qualitative methods that were used in the research. In-depth interviews were done with key informants in the city and these included officials in the city council, government ministries, and leaders of informal sector associations and civic groups in the city. Field observations were done in areas where the informal activities were carried out to assess the provision of services and the environment in which informal activities were operating. Data collected through interviews and field observations was analysed qualitatively and the SPSS was used for quantitative data analysis. The research found that informal operators in the city of Masvingo are being disenfranchised of their right to the city in various ways. They are not afforded the right to express their lives in the city centre as the city authorities are determined to flush out all informal structures and activities from the city centre in line with their modern city goals. The planning system in the city does not recognise informal activities as approved land user in the city centre and they do not plan for them in new spatial development projects. However, informal activities continue to occupy contested spaces, where they are in direct contravention of existing regulatory framework and this has been used to marginalise them and deny them of their right to the city. Right to the city calls for all urban residents to have access to the city centre and that access to city space should be based on use values rather than exchange values (Lefebvre 1996). Also, informal sector operators based at various sites in the city are generally denied access to essential services such as waste collection, provision of water and sewer services.
2020-08-31

Le développement des modes alternatifs de règlement des différends dans les contrats administratifs est une nécessité. En effet, l’encombrement des juridictions administratives, conjugué au besoin d’un règlement des différends plus consensuel et apaisé, plaide en faveur de l’émergence d’une justice alternative. Néanmoins, l’ordre public encadrant l’activité des personnes publiques, et protégé par des normes impératives, impose que le développement des modes alternatifs soit régulé. À ce titre, l’étude du droit positif démontre que ce phénomène n’est pas inconnu dans le règlement des différends intéressant les contrats administratifs. Par exemple, les parties à un différend peuvent déjà librement recourir aux modes amiables (médiation, conciliation ou transaction), et quelques dérogations au principe d’interdiction faite aux personnes publiques de recourir à l’arbitrage sont prévues. Cela étant, les lacunes et les défaillances du régime actuel des modes alternatifs dans les contrats administratifs (absence de véritable statut du médiateur, défaut d’encadrement de la conciliation inter partes, complexité de la notion de concessions réciproques ou, encore, difficulté pour le juge administratif d’asseoir sa compétence en matière d’arbitrage international...) complexifient leur compréhension et leur mise en œuvre et risquent, par suite, d’accroître les violations de l’ordre public. Il est donc nécessaire de proposer un régime pérenne des modes alternatifs permettant d’assurer, d’une part, la protection des normes impératives du droit public et, d’autre part, la liberté des parties dans le choix et la conduite d’une justice alternative. Pour cela, leur futur régime devra autoriser l’arbitrage dans les contrats administratifs et le doter de garanties procédurales prenant en compte sa nature spécifique mais, aussi, certaines caractéristiques inhérentes aux personnes publiques et au droit administratif. De même, les procédures de médiation et de conciliation devront être améliorées afin d’assurer aux parties, un encadrement souple et favorable à la conclusion de transactions équilibrées et sécurisées. Enfin, ce régime devra définitivement consacrer le rôle du juge administratif. À cet effet, ce dernier pourra être amené à assister les parties dans la mise en œuvre des modes alternatifs (création d’un juge administratif d’appui dans l’arbitrage, combinaison des procédures de référé avec les modes amiables...). Le juge administratif devra être aussi chargé du contrôle de conformité de la solution alternative à l’ordre public. Cette attribution de compétence, qui résonne de plus fort en matière d’arbitrage international, est indispensable à la protection de l’intérêt public. Ce n’est qu’à ces conditions, que le développement des modes alternatifs de règlement des différends pourra prendre toute sa place dans les contrats administratifs
The development of alternative dispute resolution in administrative contracts is a necessity. Indeed, the congestion of the administrative courts, combined with the need for a more consensual and calm settlement of disputes, pleads in favour of the emergence of an alternative justice. Nevertheless, the public order governing the activities of public bodies, and protected by imperative norms, requires that the development of alternative methods be regulated. As such, the study of positive law shows that this phenomenon is not unknown in the settlement of disputes concerning administrative contracts. For instance, the parties to a dispute can already freely resort to amicable methods (mediation, conciliation or settlement agreement), and some exceptions to the principle prohibiting public bodies from resorting to arbitration are provided for. However, the voids and shortcomings of the current system of alternative dispute resolution in administrative contracts (lack of proper status of the mediator, paucity of framework for inter partes conciliation, complexity of the concept of reciprocal concessions or, difficulty for the administrative judge to assert its competence in international arbitration...) make its understanding and implementation more complex and more prone to increasing public order violations. It is therefore necessary to propose a sustainable regime of alternative methods to ensure, on the one hand, the protection of peremptory norms of public law and, on the other hand, the freedom of the parties in the choice and conduct of an alternative justice. For that purpose, the future regime will have to authorize arbitration in administrative contracts and endow it with procedural guarantees taking into account its specific nature but also certain characteristics inherent in public entities and administrative law. Furthermore, the mediation and conciliation procedures will have to be improved in order to provide the parties with a flexible framework conducive to the conclusion of balanced and secure settlement agreements. Finally, this regime must definitively establish the role of the administrative judge. To this end, that judge may be called upon to assist the parties in the implementation of alternative methods (creation of an administrative support judge in arbitration, combination of interim reliefs with amicable procedures...). The administrative judge must also be responsible for checking the compliance of the alternative solution to the public order. This attribution of jurisdiction, which is resonates all the more in international arbitration, is fundamental for the protection of the public interest. It is only under these conditions that the development of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms can take its place in administrative contracts

This thesis presents an ethnographic account of the everyday meanings and processes associated with the idea of ‘community’ within the London neighbourhood of Kilburn. In policy and popular discourse, community is cast both as somehow able to unite people across difference, and as under threat from the proliferation of difference, which is seen as impeding mutual understanding, cooperation and belonging. Within scholarly writing, ‘community’ is often challenged as too archaic, too rigid or too ambiguous a concept to provide sufficient analytical leverage or to work as a normative ideal. Against this background, my PhD takes a look the neighbourhood of Kilburn, where amidst significant diversity, tropes of community are still widely used. I investigate how residents imagine various forms of community in relation to diversity, as well as the connections and discontinuities between these various imaginings. I draw on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, following over a dozen community projects and groups, tracing informal local networks and getting to know residents individually. My ethnography ranges from community cafes, to religious youth groups, to urban ‘gangs’, to government-led urban regeneration projects. Despite the variation in how different individuals imagined ‘community’, there was a shared view of community as a space which facilitated the bridging of difference and the construction of shared moral projects. These spaces did not exist sui generis. Rather they were opened up through the balancing of two traits: fixity and fluidity. Fixity involved defining community in terms of a clearly identifiable and familiar set of boundary markers, which serve to give it an ‘objective’ existence. Fluidity involved suspending this attempt to define community in terms of the familiar, once people were involved, in order to allow for new, shared understandings and values to emerge. The first two chapters unpack this balancing of fixity and fluidity. Chapter 1, traces inclusion and exclusion in a range of community projects, and Chapter 2 looks at tropes of race and ethnicity, examining how such ideas might be treated as simultaneously fixed and fluid. . The two chapters unpack the transformational power of community. Chapter 3 looks at a community centre for young Muslims, as well as at a local community radio station, and argues that community spaces have the potential to foster an ethic of continual openness to difference. Chapter 4 looks at a group of ‘street youth’ and their diverse views of success, and argues that community can act as a collective repository of future potential, allowing community members to transform their ethical trajectory within their own lives. The final two chapters look at contestations over community. Chapter 5 looks at clashing uses of public spaces and argues that such spaces are often read in highly fixed ways, and as lacking the potential for community-like negotiations. Chapter 6 looks at local regeneration projects and contrasts the ways in which community is valued locally, to the ways in which it is valued by state and market actors. The thesis concludes by emphasizing the necessarily plural, dynamic, contested and grounded nature of the idea of community described here.

Cette recherche examine d’une part le caractère ontologique de la spatialisation des surfeurs et appréhende d’autrepart la nature des politiques publiques territorialisées en faveur du surf. Dans le cadre du rapport du surfeur à la vague, onobserve qu’à travers l’acte de glisse, les surfeurs métamorphosent le lieu et produisent leurs espaces de pratique. Ilsnourrissent ainsi le sentiment d’être-au-monde induit par l’habitabilité de la vague, la cosmogonisation de la vague. Enréhabilitant le concept d’habiter forgé par Martin Heidegger, on élabore les contours d’une géographie de l’intime penséecomme l’étude de l’espace habité afin d’envisager « la géographicité » des surfeurs, leurs « prises trajectives », leur« condition géographique ». On distingue donc les termes de lieu et d’espace en démontrant que le premier est atopique,insignifiant tandis que le second est sacralisé. On entend alors dépasser une lecture de l’espace présupposé comme déjàacquis pour l’homme et abordé comme seul support de ses spatialités. Par ailleurs, on examine comment les néoterritorialités sportives induites par la démocratisation du surf sur la côte aquitaine bouleversent la structuration des stations balnéaires fondée sur plus de deux siècles de développement touristique. Les pouvoirs publics, forts de la réhabilitation de l’image du surfeur dans le paysage médiatique, et conscients des enjeux territoriaux inhérents à la promotion de cette pratique sportive, accompagnent l’ancrage du surf et orchestrent une intégration sociospatiale du surf au sein des espaces urbains de ces stations balnéaires. Quant à l’institutionnalisation des territoires du surf, déclinée dans les outils de prospective et de planification territoriale, elle se traduit par « une mise en scène (géo-)graphique » du potentiel récréatif du littoral aquitain, une diversification de l’offre sportive au bénéfice d’un renforcement de l’attractivité touristique. Mais cette institutionnalisation des territoires du surf n’est pas sans provoquer des résistances et contestations de la part de certains surfeurs. Celles-ci, jusqu’ici présentées comme des luttes intestines et stigmatisées dans le seul champ de la déviance, sont alors présentées comme les manifestations d’un désir de préserver la dimension ontologique de l’espace-vague habité. À l’heure où le surf est mobilisé pour réenchanter le littoral aquitain, certains surfeurs, désenchantés vis-à-vis d’un tel projet de développement touristique, résistent et contestent en réponse à ce qu’ils ressentent comme une atteinte à leur existentialité
This study investigates the ontological feature of the surfers’ spatialization on the one hand and, on the other hand, it endeavours to comprehend the public policies as far as surfriding is concerned. We establish that surfriding enables the surfriders to transform the place and create their own practicing spaces. Hence, they nurse their being into the world inferred by the dwellingness and the cosmogonization of the wave. By way of referring to Martin Heidegger’s concept ofdwelling, we have worked out a geography of the intimate to analyse the dwellt space. We have set apart the notions of placeand space revealing that the first term is meaningless whereas the second notion is made sacred. Moreover, this thesis examines to what extent the sport neoterritoriality induced by the surfriding democratisation on the Aquitaine coastline disrupts the seaside resorts’ organization based on more than two centuries of tourism development. The authorities promote the sociospatial integration of surfriding amidst the urban spaces of the seaside resorts. Through potentialstudy and territorial planning relating to surfriding, the authorities endeavour to strengthen the tourism attractiveness of thecoastline. Confronted with this institutionalization of their territories, some surfers have raised a protest which expresses their will to preserve the ontological dimension of the dwellt wave. While surfring is used to glorify the littoral of the Aquitaine region, some surfers, who are disillusioned by this project of tourism development, protest against what they feel like aninfringement of their existentiality

Au carrefour de la sociologie de la culture et de la sociologie de la déviance, ce travail porte sur les dimensions festives et oppositionnelles du monde des free parties, qui s’articule autour de manifestations techno clandestines et marginales. A partir d’une enquête ethnographique, il s’agit d’examiner une pratique culturelle et musicale mais aussi de saisir la variété des expressions oppositionnelles que les jeunes engagés dans ce monde y déploient. A la suite d’un travail de clarification théorique, cette recherche s’inspire de la notion de contre-culture, dans laquelle l’idée de conflictualité est centrale. Cet outil conceptuel permet d’explorer diverses facettes de l’univers free, controversé et encore largement méconnu, et notamment sa composante « contre ». On peut ainsi montrer que, si le monde free est loin d’être réductible à ses dimensions oppositionnelles, celles-ci peuvent donner un relief particulier à la fête – et réciproquement. La pertinence du croisement entre l’objet « free parties » et l’outil conceptuel « contre-cultures » est due en partie à la double déviance, sociale et légale, qui caractérise les fêtes techno étudiées. Les différents aspects oppositionnels mis en évidence dans ce monde juvénile, ainsi que la distinction entre non-conformité et contestation qui en émane, permettent d’analyser le rapport entre déviance, illégalité, conflictualité/illégalité à la lumière du cas des free parties
At the crossroads of the sociology of culture and the sociology of deviance, this work focuses on the festive and oppositional dimensions of the free party world, which revolves around clandestine and marginal techno events. Based on an ethnographic research, this study aims to examine a cultural and musical practice but also to grasp the various oppositional expressions unfolding within this youth culture. After providing a theoretical clarification, I draw on the notion of counterculture, in which the idea of conflict is central. This conceptual tool enables me to explore various facets of the free party universe, controversial and still largely misunderstood, and in particular its antagonistic elements. Thus I show that, while the free party world does not amount to its oppositional dimensions, the latter can enhance the festive experience – and vice versa. The double deviance – both social and legal – characteristic of the studied techno parties makes it all the more relevant to bring together this object of study and the concept of counterculture. The various oppositional aspects of this youth culture I highlight, as well as the resulting distinction between nonconformity and contention, enable me to analyze the relationship between deviance, illegality, and conflict/counterculture in the light of the case of free parties

The new Public Procurement Law introduces the Dispute Boards as a new settlement ofdisputes and contestations during the contractual execution of the work phase. The present article works, in the first place, the framework of public procurement and the controversies that are originated in the matter. Then, it will expose the development of the Dispute Boards in other countried and their characteristics. Finally, it concludes identifying the type of Dispute Boards that is being adopted in Peruvian law, showing his vantages and disadvantages.
La nueva Ley de Contrataciones del Estado, Ley N° 30225, incorpora la Junta de Resolución de Disputas, como un nuevo mecanismo de resolución de conflictos durante la fase de ejecución contractual de obras.En el artículo se desarrolla, en primer lugar, el marco de las contrataciones del Estado y las controversias que se originan en el mismo. Posteriormente, se expone el desarrollo de los Dispute Boards internacionalmente y sus características, y se concluye identificando el tipo de Dispute Boards adoptado en la legislación peruana, exponiendo sus fortalezas y debilidades.

S'appuyant sur des enquêtes de terrain conduites à Kinshasa, cette thèse s'intéresse aux parcours des Shégués, ces jeunes citadins qui empruntent un chemin « différent » dans les rues de la mégapole congolaise. En « prenant » et en habitant la rue, en s'écartant des formes d'existence conventionnelles en famille et sous un toit, les acteurs se plongent dans une aventure citadine vagabonde porteuse de contraintes et d'alternatives. En contrepoint aux discours dominants qui les associent à des enfants des rues marginaux, isolés et inaudibles, ces Shégués apparaissent au contraire comme des figures incontournables de la citadinité kinoise. Assujettis à un mode d’existence semé de contraintes et d’incertitudes, ces jeunes citadins se retrouvent autour de nouvelles formes de sociabilité synonymes de soutien et de violence autant d’opportunités alternatives d’exister et de se distinguer, voire d’émerger comme des individus reconnus et renommés. Les Shégués édifient une culture de rues qui leur permet de nouer des interactions composites avec l’ensemble des usagers de la ville, au point de s’insérer dans les réseaux de pouvoir citadin. Leur singularisation sociale et la stigmatisation qu’elle engendre s’accompagne d’une multitude de contraintes mais aussi d’occasions supplémentaires d’agir sur la ville, voire d’accéder à des formes de popularité et de prestige. Comment les Shégués agissent-ils sur leur ville ? Que nous disent-ils des perspectives d’accomplissement personnel s’offrant aux jeunes de Kinshasa d’aujourd’hui ? Quels sont les impacts politiques de la violence qu’ils exercent et qu’ils subissent ? Produisent-ils une culture contre-hégémonique ou viennent-ils au contraire renforcer un ordre politique violent et clientéliste ? Quelles frontières distinguent ces jeunes acteurs des autres citadins ? Forgent-ils une culture subversive et contestataire ? Les trajectoires des Shégués donnent à voir les ambivalences d’une sous-culture juvénile dépendante de son environnement immédiat pour survivre qui se réapproprie les codes établis par les dominants tout en défiant l’exclusion à laquelle ceux-ci les assignent. S’ils peuvent ainsi apparaître comme des figures renforçant l’ordre établi par « ceux d’en haut », ces acteurs forgent des styles de vie porteurs de subversion et de contestation dans une mégapole kinoise mobile et secrète de nouvelles normes et de nouvelles façons de vivre et de survivre. Les Shégués s’affirment en définitive comme des acteurs moteurs d’une dynamique citadine qui promeut sans relâche de nouvelles figures de légitimité et de prestige, tout en reformulant continûment de nouveaux imaginaires d’autres vies possibles. Ils expriment les visées critiques et politiques d’une vie vagabonde qui participe et influe sur les changements d’une citadinité kinoise s’appliquant à réinventer les voies qui lui permettraient de renverser le cours du destin en accédant enfin à une « autre vie »
Based on several field works in Kinshasa, the object of the thesis is the trajectories of « Shégués », these young city-dwellers who take a « different » path in the streets of the congolese megapolis. By « taking » the street and living in it they, diverge of conventional forms of existence under a roof in a family and throw themselves in a wandering urban adventure which generates both constraints and alternatives. In contrast to dominant discources that tend to represent them as marginal, isolated and inaudible « street children », it appears that Shégués are essential figures of the urban experience in Kinshasa. Subjected to a life full of constraint and uncertainty, they gather aroud new forms of sociability that can be seen as ways to support each other, forms of violence but also as alternative opportunities to « exist ». They can also constitute forms of distinction and even lead to the rise of famous and renowed people. The Shégués create a street culture that paves the way to heterogeneous interactions with other city dwellers and sometimes an incorporation of urban networks of power. Their social differenciation entails a process of stigmatization along a series of constraints. It also provides additional opportunities to have agency in the city and even reach some forms of popularity and prestige. How do they have agency on the city? What do they tell us on the youth’s perspectives of personal accomplishement in Kinshasa today? What are the political effects of the violence they both exert and endure? Do they produce a counter-hegemonic culture? Or do their actions tend to reinforce a violent political order? What are the social frontiers between these young actors and other city-dwellers? Do they shape a culture of subversion and protest? The trajectories of Shégués shed light on the ambivalence of a youth sub-culture, totally reliant on its local environment to urvive and that reclaim the codes established by the dominant sectors of society while challenging the exclusion they endure. While they can appear to reinforce the current « top-down » social order, the Shégués also shape new subversive and contentious life styles in a evolving megapolis, itself generating new norms and new ways of life and survival. In the end, the Shégués assert their role as actors of urban dynamic that keeps creating new figures of legitimacy and prestige while continuously reformulating new imagineries of alternative life possibilities. They express the critical and political ambition of their wandering life that contribute to « citadinity » in Kinshasa but also impact it. They do so by reinventing the ways to teverse their destiny and eventually gain acess to « another life »

It is more than 20 years since 1985, when world climate and atmospheric scientists first issued an authoritative warning of the danger of global warming. In 1988, scientists, environmentalists and politicians from 48 countries endorsed the Toronto Declaration to address global warming that called for a twenty percent worldwide reduction in CO emissions by the year 2005 leading to an eventual fifty percent reduction. Contestation and collaboration in the global climate change public policy process, involving a wide range of actors, has continued since then. Two organisations were founded in 1989 by non-state actors on opposite sides of the climate policy debate. These were the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which was established by a range of US business interests, and Climate Action Network (CAN) established by a range of environmental and scientific non-governmental organisations. The thesis documents, analyses and compares how each organisation was formed, organised and developed. It reviews how GCC and CAN enabled more effective national and transnational advocacy and how they fostered opposing policy coalitions on climate policy. The respective approaches are assessed, evaluated and contrasted as each sought to gain support for their opposing policy positions in the global climate change policy process. The research uses a neo-Gramscian theoretical perspective and develops and applies an analytical framework focused on policy coalitions of state and non-state actors to investigate the role that non-state actors played in the global climate policy process. GCC and CAN played major roles within opposing policy coalitions that became particularly important in shaping the outcome of the global and national climate policy processes. The thesis focuses on the role of GCC and CAN and their associated policy coalitions in influencing the framing, developing, implementation and review of global climate policy. It examines the global climate change policy process through this analytical lens of contestation between policy coalitions from the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 to the first Meeting of the Parties of the ratified Kyoto Protocol in 2005. The thesis assesses the analytical framework and concludes by identifying critical issues that the current global public policy processes have encountered in developing and implementing effective global climate change public policy.

This research report examines the extent to which the economic and spatial practices of informal people can be classed as radical genda-setting towards an alternative city. In so doing the practices and perceptions of business owners, market traders and street traders in Yeoville are explored. To give greater context of what informal people are possibly pushing up against, state practice and policy are also considered. The discussion further draws on the nexus between politics and governance as well as between the state and capital on the making of contemporary cities. Social movement theory provides the initial basis to carry out the discussion. The interweaving theories of quiet encroachment (Bayat), insurgent citizenship (Holston) and subaltern urbanism (Roy) give the exploration greater depth.

Ce mémoire explore le vécu et la construction de l’expérience de jeunes racisés ayant reçu des constats d’infraction dans le cadre de leur occupation de l’espace public montréalais. Il s’agit spécifiquement d’appréhender, à partir de la sociologie de l’expérience de Dubet (1994), le profil et les conditions de vie, la présence dans l’espace public, les raisons et la nature des constats d’infraction, les stratégies mises en œuvre face au profilage racial ainsi que les conséquences du profilage racial sur les jeunes racisés. Se situant dans une perspective qualitative, la méthodologie de recherche a reposé sur le recueil de dix entrevues semi-dirigées, soit neuf jeunes hommes et une jeune fille entre 18 et 30 ans ayant eu des contacts avec la police dans le cadre du contrôle de l’espace public à Montréal. Basée essentiellement sur l’approche mixte de Miles et Huberman (2003), l’analyse du corpus a permis de rendre compte de l’hétérogénéité de l’expérience des jeunes racisés et profilés interrogés et de dégager deux types d’expérience de profilage racial : les contestataires et les résignés. Si les interactions avec les forces de l’ordre engendrent des traitements perçus comme discriminatoires, l’expérience se construit en fonction de la nature des interactions, du niveau de maturité et de la tranche d’âge des jeunes et elle se décline en une logique de soumission et une logique de lutte pour la contestation des constats d’infraction. Les résultats de la recherche démontrent par ailleurs la pertinence de l’accompagnement du jeune au niveau de la prise de conscience de ses droits et de la contestation des tickets reçus.
This memoir explores the real-life experience and the construction of the experience of racialized youths who have received statements of offense for having occupied the Montreal public space. Using the Sociology of experience theorized by Dubet (1994), the profile and the living conditions, the presence in public areas, the reasons and nature of the statements of offense, the strategies implemented for racial profiling along with its consequences on the racialized youths all must be apprehended. Based on a qualitative perspective, the research method was founded on 10 semi-structured interviews where 9 young men and 1 one young lady between the ages of 18 and 30 who have had encounters with the police concerning the control of the public space in Montreal. Essentially based on the mixed approach of Miles and Huberman (2003), the corpus analyze helped to understand heterogeneity of the experience of racially profiled youths questioned. It was possible to distinguish two types of racial profiling experience: the protesters and the resigned. If the interactions with law enforcement create treatments that are perceived to be discriminatory, the experience is constructed according to the nature of the interaction, the maturity level and the age group of the youths and comes in submission or contest strategies. The results of the research demonstrate otherwise the relevance of the youth's accompaniment at the level of realization of their rights and the protestation of the received infractions.