Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social movements – Europe'

Defence date: 25 March 2020 (Online)
Examining Board: Donatella Della Porta (EUI/SNS) (Supervisor), Laszlo Bruszt (EUI/CEU), Claire Colomb (UCL), Eduardo Romanos (Madrid Complutense)
This thesis analyses urban protest actions in the context of austerity urbanism in Southern Europe, attempting to better understand the conditions that lead to the mobilisation of urban protestors. To date, the literature on urban movements has tended to analyse the effect of macro-forces in transforming the urban environment, finding in them an explanation for protest. By contrast, local contexts – the political and institutional environments in which urban protest emerge – has been relatively unexplored. This is the case despite the fact that, empirically, we see significant variation in local protest despite similarity in the macro-problems effecting residents’ lives. Barcelona and Turin are examples of two cities that share many similarities in terms of large-scale processes and phenomena but nonetheless differ markedly in terms of the characteristics of their respective urban mobilisation. Both cities have transformed their economic model over recent decades, moving from an industrial base to the promotion of cultural and knowledge-based economic activity. Recently, both cities have been acutely affected by the financial crisis, suffering severe housing crises and being subject to fiscal constraints and austerity cuts. At the same time, both cities have a strong tradition of urban protest. Taking existing urban studies literature as a starting point, all of these factors would lead to an expectation of similar levels and forms of urban protest in Barcelona and Turin, but this thesis shows that urban mobilisation in the two cities differs in significant ways. This thesis explores the ways in which local contexts may be important in shaping expressions of urban protest. In doing so, I use protest event analysis and content analysis methodologies to collect, map and analyse 852 protest actions in Barcelona and Turin between 2011 and 2015. Drawing on the broader literature on social movements, I argue that the nature and structure of local institutionalised power are important and under-studied aspects of the dynamics of urban protest. More broadly, the thesis suggests that in order to understand urban protest, it is necessary to look beyond the particularistic qualities and fragmentation of a highly place-embedded activism and consider it in the deeper context of the local political process.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2007.
Thesis research directed by: Dept. of Government and Politics. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

This thesis explores the meaning of "youth" and the political mobilisation of young people in key moments of crisis in Europe. Between 2005 and 2011, youth became critical for the consolidation of the authoritarian regime structures in Russia. I show that this process included the restructuring of the discourse about youth, the physical mobilisation of young people, and the isolation of oppositional youth. How valid are these findings for regime crises more generally? I answer this question through an analysis of the breakdown of the authoritarian Soviet Union during perestroika, the breakdown of unconsolidated democracy during the last years of the Weimar Republic, and the crisis of the democratic regime in France around 1968. The cross-regional and cross-temporal comparison of these episodes demonstrates that regimes lacking popular democratic support compensate for their insufficient legitimacy by trying to mobilise youth symbolically and politically. By developing a new method of textual analysis which combines qualitative content analysis and network analysis, the thesis offers a novel social science perspective on the meaning of youth in the four cases. My study shows how discursive structures about youth condition the possibility of political mobilisation of young people. The thesis makes three contributions to comparative politics. First, on an empirical level, my study offers new insights into social movements at moments of regime crisis in different political settings. Second, on a conceptual level, I refine our understanding of the symbolic significance of the terms "youth" and "generation" in moments when society is reorienting itself. I also examine the significance of "crisis" and argue that the term expresses openness and the possibility to remake the past and future. Third, on a methodological level, my thesis builds on the growing interest in textual analysis by developing a novel multi-level approach in three linguistic contexts, which offers insights into the structure of public discourse and the actors involved.

Cette thèse porte sur le mouvement altermondialiste dans sa déclinaison européenne, en s'intéressant en particulier au processus du Forum Social Européen tel qu'il a été initié à Florence en novembre 2002. Plus spécifiquement, nous nous intéressons à des réseaux thématiques qui se sont constitués au fil des éditions du Forum Social Européen avec l'objectif de renforcer la coordination entre les différents participants au Forum, sur des thèmes économiques et sociaux liés à l'intégration européenne. Ces réseaux ont été constitués dans le sillage des grandes manifestations altermondialistes de portée européenne qui se sont développées dans les années 90-2000. Rapidement après leur création, ces réseaux ont cependant réuni de moins en moins de participants et ont finalement disparu en tant qu'espaces d'organisation collective. Cette thèse vise principalement à expliquer l'échec de ces réseaux. La mise en relation de la création de nos réseaux thématiques avec les mobilisations de l'altermondialisme européen, qui semblent s'essouffler au milieu des années 2000, nous incite à les analyser dans le cadre d'un processus de démobilisation au niveau européen. Celui-ci se traduit par des conflits entre les participants restant sur les modes de fonctionnement collectif au sein des réseaux ou sur les stratégies collectives à mettre en œuvre, et finalement à de nouveaux retraits de participants. La distinction de plusieurs phases entre 2005 et 2010 nous permet par ailleurs d'envisager cette combinaison entre démobilisation et conflits à plusieurs niveaux. Tandis que la fin de campagnes altermondialistes en Europe nous permet d'observer des conflits entre les acteurs sur le rôle de réseaux thématiques comme structures potentielles d'action collective, la baisse de la participation dans le cadre spécifique du Forum Social Européen fait naitre des conflits sur le rôle que devraient endosser ces réseaux dans ce processus. Finalement, le fort déclin de la participation dans le FSE d'Istanbul en 2010 aboutit à la disparition des réseaux thématiques étudiés. Au-delà de leur échec, ce travail se termine néanmoins par la mise en évidence des apports de ces expériences sur la constitution d'un groupe d'acteurs à l'échelle européenne entretenant des objectifs proches
This thesis is about the Global Justice Movement (GJM) in its European dimension, focusing on the European Social Forum process which was launched in Florence in November 2002. More precisely, specific thematic networks have been created in the course of this process with the aim of strengthening coordination between different participants on economic and social issues linked with the European integration. These networks were created in the wake of some campaigns of the Global Justice Movement in Europe which developed in the years 1997-2005. However, fewer and fewer participants took part in the meetings of the networks, and they finally disappeared as spaces of collective organisation. This thesis is aimed at explaining the failure of these networks. We first analyze their creation as a sign of a larger process of demobilisation after 2005, concerning the whole GJM in Europe. This process leads to conflicts between remaining participants, about the internal functioning of the networks (modes of decisions, etc.) and the external collective strategies that should be defined. We distinguish several phases between 2005 and 2010 where we can find this combination between demobisation and internal conflicts in the networks. Although we observe conflicts between actors of the networks while some global justice campaigns are coming to an end in Europe (2005-2006), the decline of participation in the European Social Forum leads to conflicts about the role these networks should have in this process (2007-2010). Finally, the huge loss of participants in the ESF in Istanbul in 2010 led to the end of the thematic networks which are studied here. Beyond their failure, we point at the end of this thesis the positive contribution of these experiences that favoured the constitution of a coherent group of actors with similar objectives at the European level

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how digital activism is conducted on Twitter, particularly in relation to the dialogues and demands for Europe’s green economic recovery plan from COVID-19. It seeks to analyse the communication made using #GreenRecovery on Twitter by various actors over the period of May to June 2020, guided by the theory of public sphere and social movement and literature on digital activism, hashtag activism, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Political Activity (CPA) using a qualitative and quantitative content analysis.By analysing the frequency patterns of tweets and by uncovering the different types of communication, this paper sheds light on the users involved as well as the issue frames and mobilisation strategies that were visible in the #GreenRecovery discourse . Results of this study demonstrate that #GreenRecovery is used by varying actors on Twitter such as individuals, social movements, businesses and others. Furthermore, the hashtag has been used to raise awareness, communicate particular information, mobilize action and also employ assertion as dominant digital spectator activity. Tweets with #GreenRecovery was primarily framed towards the need for a redesign of the economy, indicating demands for changes in policies by targeting accounts of political actors from the EU Commission. It is further implied that during the discourse, #GreenRecovery acted as a structural signifier as a response to the leaked proposal of the Recovery Plan demonstrating that it has the potential to create hashtag communities.

La plupart des travaux portant sur la politique et la contestation de l’énergie nucléaire étudient des enjeux de mobilisations locaux et nationaux. Cette thèse a pour but de montrer que si les théories de la « nouvelle gouvernance » défendent l’hypothèse d’un dépassement de l’État, elles ne permettent pas de suffisamment saisir les dilemmes et les blocages de la transnationalisation de la cause anti-nucléaire. A partir de travaux de la sociologie des mouvements sociaux, des réseaux et de la sociologie politique, cette thèse vise à mieux comprendre la genèse et les modalités de la coopération et de la concurrence des Verts européens, des ONG environnementales telles que Greenpeace et Les Amis de la Terre, et des groupes locaux et nationaux. De la première conférence internationale des Nations Unies sur l'environnement de Stockholm en 1972 à la conférence sur le changement climatique de Copenhague en 2009, cette thèse étudie pourquoi et comment les militants se saisissent d’opportunités politiques internationales ou européennes. Elle explicite deux dilemmes de la coopération transnationale, à savoir la diversité des contraintes nationales des champs politiques et le degré d’institutionnalisation des groupes de contestation. Elle analyse enfin comment les militants établissent les règles de fonctionnement d’un capital social transnational comme « bien collectif » qui facilite la production, la circulation et la réception de différents types de ressources et de compétences sociales pour les militants. Loin de céder aux sirènes de l’avènement d’une « société civile transnationale », ce travail insiste sur la grande hétérogénéité pdes militants, profondément ancrés dans des champs politiques nationaux. Cette situation explique que l’activisme transnational en Europe demeure provisoire et discontinu
Most of the work about the politics and contention of nuclear energy deal with local and national issues. This thesis aims to show that « new governance » theories, speaking about the decline of the state, cannot capture properly enough the various dilemmas and conflicts that prevent the rise and dynamic of the transnationalisation of the antinuclear cause. Based on social movement sociology, network sociology and political sociology, this work studies the incremental cooperation between green political parties, environmental NGO’s such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and last but not the least, local and national protest groups from the beginning of the 1970’s to the end of the 2000’s. From the first United Nation International Conference on the Environment of Stockholm in 1972 to the International Conference on Climate Change of Copenhagen in 2009, this thesis show why and how transnational activists perceive and size political international and European opportunities. It shows as well how activists face two kinds of dilemmas that prevent further transnational cooperation: the widediversity of constraints of political fields and the degree of institutionalization of antinuclear groups. It focuses on how antinuclear activists become able to build up rules of transnational social capital, understood as a “collective good” that may well facilitate the production, circulation and reception of different types of social resources and competences for activists. Far from turning a blind eye on the contradictions of what could be seen as a « transnational civil society », this work emphasizes the heterogeneity of activists, who remain deeply rooted into national political fields. This situation explains why transnational activism in Europe is still temporary and discontinuous

The thesis reviews the engagement of news media in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, most vividly represented by the opening of the Berlin Wall. It uses field observations of the author as a jouralist of the time, extensive interviews with other news correspondents, a review of historical writing on the period, and an exhaustive review of the coverage given by six major news outlets. The work sees the change in Europe being driven by mass social movements, but also examines conventional, institutional politics at work, and describes the engagement of news media in the historical situation as it unfolds. It determines that the daily coverage by leading Western news media judged in terms of accuracy and perspective was successful, validated by later evaluations. It is informed by theoretical writing on mass social movements and on journalistic news values. It concludes by suggesting that the approach followed, a review of history from the perspective of news media of the day, could be applied to many other situations.

Drawing on methodologies from Performance Studies and Transnational American Studies, this dissertation is an historical analysis of the transatlantic relations of the American Indian radical sovereignty movement of the late Cold War. First the study recovers the transnational dimension of Native Americans as historical actors, and demonstrates that the American Indian radical sovereignty movement of the early 1970s posed a transnational challenge to the U.S. nation state. Next, arguing against the scholarly consensus, it shows that by the mid-1970s the American Indian radical sovereignty movement transformed itself into a transnational struggle with a transatlantic wing. Surveying the older transatlantic cultural representations of American Indians, this study finds that they both enabled and constrained an alliance between Native radical sovereignty activists and European solidarity groups in the 1970s and 1980s. This dissertation traces the history of American Indian access and participation in the United Nations, documents the transformation of Native concepts of Indian sovereignty, and analyzes the resulting alliances in the UN between American Indian organizations, Third World countries, national liberation movements, and Marxist régimes. Finally, this study documents how national governments such as the United States and the German Democratic Republic responded to the transatlantic sovereignty alliance from the middle of the 1970s through the end of the Cold War.

This thesis examines the opposition to civil nuclear energy in France and West Germany during the 1970s, arguing that small-scale interactions among its diverse participants led to broad changes in their personal lives and political environments. Drawing extensively on oral history interviews with former activists as well as police reports, media coverage and protest ephemera, this thesis shows how individuals at the grassroots built up a movement that transcended national (and social) borders. They were able to do so in part because nuclear power was such a multivalent symbol at the time. Residents of towns near planned power stations felt that nuclear technology represented an intervention in their community by state and industry, a potential threat to their health, wealth and way of life. In the decade after 1968, concerns like these coalesced with criticisms of capitalism, the state, militarism and consumer society that were being made by a more politicised constituency. This made the anti-nuclear movement both broad-based and highly fragmented. Activist networks linked people across existing national, political and social boundaries, but the social world of activism was subject to its own divisions (such as between locals and outsiders or between militant and non-violent activists). By analysing both the transnational dimensions and internal divisions of the anti-nuclear movement, this thesis revises the homogenising concepts of social movements that are prevalent in much of the existing sociological and political science literature. At the same time, it situates the anti-nuclear movement historically within the decade of upheaval that was the 1970s, while moving individual activists from the margins to the centre of protest history.

La crise financière a démystifié le système capitaliste aux yeux de larges segments de la population d’Europe de l'Est, exacerbant le décalage entre les attentes suscitées par le processus de démocratisation et la situation, souvent difficile, d’un nombre important de citoyens. Dans ce contexte, l'indignation que certains d’entre eux expriment s'est dirigée contre la classe politique, donnant naissance à de nouvelles formes de mobilisation. Cette thèse analyse ces mobilisations dans un cadre comparatif incluant des réseaux militants en Hongrie et en Roumanie, sur la période 2008 - 2014. Quelles sont les caractéristiques des récentes vagues de protestations ? Ces protestations s’inscrivent-elles dans la continuité de répertoires d’action plus anciens ? Si la Roumanie et la Hongrie sont « en transition », quelles sont les mutations qui affectent les conditions de mobilisation ? Comment expliquer les différences de dynamiques que l’on observe dans les deux pays ? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous avons essayé de bâtir des passerelles entre deux champs de recherche, celui de la transition démocratique et celui des mouvements sociaux. En Roumanie comme en Hongrie, la prise en compte des transformations systémiques induites par la transition semble en effet essentielle à la compréhension des phénomènes de mobilisation récents. L'analyse détaillée des processus d'accumulation de capital social relationnel et cognitif qui en résulte - à l’origine de l’émergence de nouvelles générations d’activistes – constitue l’apport principal de notre travail. La démarche diachronique que nous avons adoptée nous a par ailleurs permis d’identifier et de caractériser les influences qu’un réseau militant peut avoir sur un autre et l’impact d’une protestation sur la suivante. Soucieux de produire des informations précises et circonstanciées sur l’environnement politique, économique et culturel dans lequel naissent les mobilisations étudiées, nous avons interrogé, à partir d’un sondage en ligne, des spécialistes de la société civile, des médias et de la vie politique des deux pays. Parallèlement, nous avons réalisé 26 entretiens approfondis avec des activistes en Hongrie et en Roumanie pour parvenir à définir les processus de mobilisation des ressources, les canaux de mobilisation utilisées, les caractéristiques des réseaux et des organisations en présence, mais aussi l’identité des activistes et, subséquemment, leur perception du contexte d’action dans lequel ils s’inscrivent. En prenant en compte l’ensemble de ces éléments, nous avons pu montrer comment l'accumulation d’expériences de mobilisations nourrissait les mouvements suivants, plus nombreux et plus visibles au fil du temps. Dans cette dynamique, les réseaux sociaux en ligne jouent un rôle essentiel. La socialisation politique sur Facebook a notamment contribué au développement d’une identité commune et à la transformation de l'indignation personnelle en engagement collectif. La multiplication des interactions sociales, une certaine similitude de goûts et de visions du monde, ainsi qu’un effort de réseautage ont permis à l'activisme en ligne de se transformer en activisme de rue. La nature et l’intensité de cet engagement diffèrent selon les deux pays. En Roumanie, « un militantisme récréationnel » puisant ses racines dans la simultanéité de la consommation culturelle et de l'implication civique est observable. A l’inverse, en Hongrie l’enthousiasme civique semble s’essouffler. Confrontés à un pouvoir politique stable, soutenu par la majorité de la population et capable de s'opposer fermement aux initiatives de la société civile, les mouvements de contestation hongrois n’ont pas réussi à déstabiliser le pouvoir en place. Cet exemple montre qu’une culture de protestation relativement vivace ne débouche pas automatiquement sur un fort niveau de mobilisation citoyenne. Par contraste, le cas de la Roumanie
In Eastern Europe the financial crisis of 2008 highlighted the gap between expectations concerning the new configuration of liberal and capitalist states on the one hand, and the social realities on the other. Waves of contention followed, which were provoked especially by austerity measures implemented by the respective governments. These were in their majority directed against the post-communist elites, which were held responsible for the perceived slow progress regarding economic performance and the democratization process in the years before. With the purpose of analyzing new forms of collective action and protests that appeared following this crisis, this dissertation is dedicated to study, in a comparative manner, activist networks in Hungary and Romania between 2008 and 2014.The following questions are in the center of the study: Are those recent waves of mobilization different from forms of protests prior to the crisis or can we observe a continuation of repertoires of contention? If Romania and Hungary are considered to be countries still located in the transition process, without having reached the “goal” of consolidated democracies, are the conditions and forms of collective action also undergoing profound transformations? If so, how can we explain the different dynamics in those two countries?Given the fact, that the analysis of social movements is becoming a multicentric subfield of social sciences, the present study draws on a diversity of analytical angles, not only stemming from approaches to investigate social movements and regime change, but also including additional theoretical avenues, in order to answer these main questions. Taking into account the transformation background of Romania and Hungary seems the appropriate perspective to understand recent mobilizations. For this purpose, this study analyzes processes of the accumulation of cognitive and relational social capital, shaping a new generation of activists. By doing so, the emphasis could be put on observing the effects of protests on subsequent mobilizations and the spillover/ interaction between activist networks over time. In a first step, I gathered comparable data on the political, economic and social environment, in which these networks arose, by carrying out expert on-line surveys in both countries. For a better understanding of mechanisms of resource mobilization, mobilization channels, network characteristics and organizational features, I conducted 26 in-depth interviews with activists from both countries. As a result, I was able to highlight the significance of protest-specific experiences for future mobilizations. Online social networks appear to play a key role in this dynamic in contemporary social movements, mainly through their capacity of generating a collective identity and transforming personal indignation into collective action. The nature and the intensity of this dynamic vary in the two countries. While I observed a growth of, what I called “recreational activism” in Romania, resulting from the concomitance of patterns of cultural consumption and civic involvement, a certain protest fatigue can be attested for the first years after the crisis in Hungary. Confronted with stable political configurations and a government that is widely supported by the electorate, movements contesting the power of Fidesz were not able to destabilize existing power structures in Hungary. Hence, this study shows that a longstanding culture of protest and of civic engagement does not necessarily lead, in different circumstances, to high levels of political activism of challengers to political power. Furthermore, the Romanian case suggests that rather the absence of such a culture, combined with a lack of precedent and experiences for both, engaged citizens and authorities can open spaces for renegotiating rules and provoke (lasting) political and cultural changes

Political mobilizations by ‘forced migrants’ for rights and recognition have proliferated worldwide in the last two decades. Yet, these contentious practices have rarely received widespread public attention. They contrast with a dominant portrayal of marginalized migrants as either passive, needy and ideally grateful objects of government or civil society humanitarianism or stigmatized outsiders and intruders in a national order. Also the academic reflection on the issue has started only relatively recently, particularly in critical migration and citizenship studies, and far less so in social movement studies. According to dominant movement theories, (forced) migrants are unlikely subjects of mobilization due to legal obstacles (including ‘deportability’), limited economic and social capital and closed political and discursive opportunities. Against this background, my thesis explores diverse processes of political mobilization by forced migrants with a view to provide theoretical refinements and empirical complements to the body of literature in social movement studies. Given the volatile and fragmented nature of forced migrant mobilizations, the research draws from recent innovations in contentious politics, highlighting ‘micro-interactions’ in specific arenas, as well the concrete spatial underpinnings of such practices. The key guiding interest evolves around the question of how protest by forced migrants emerges and unfolds through interactions among diverse players in specific arenas. I analyse the making and unmaking of social ties by forced migrants, as well as the spaces they enact and embody in processes of mobilization. With a view to integrate knowledge obtained in other disciplines, the research is furthemore informed by critical migration studies, particularly the notions of ‘acts of citizenship’ under precarious conditions in exclusive migration regimes. Designed in the tradition of ‘political ethnography’, the project both homes in on specific interactions in deleneated arenas and adds a comparative element by contrasting various arenas. The project investigates four protest arenas in two European capitals, Berlin and Paris. It therefore scrutinizes and contrasts processes of mobilization in two distinct legal, relational and spatial contexts. In adding a diachronic comparison in each location, the research aims at the tentative identification of relational and spatial patterns in forced migrant mobilizations. The research shows how marginalized actors temporarily overcome structural obstacles through interactions with more powerful actors and by appropriating spaces with avantageous relational qualities. Moreover, the research documents the fragility of ties that are made and unmade both among forced migrants and with pro-beneficiaries in concrete contentious interactions.

Dans cette thèse nous étudions, d’abord, le développement du Mouvement « universel » de la « jeunesse chrétienne » en tant que réseau transnational dans l’espace occidental au cours de la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle. Nous y analysons ensuite l’interaction entre les agents de la branche américaine du Mouvement, la YMCA, et les représentants des élites politiques, économiques, religieuses et intellectuelles russes en Russie depuis la fin des années 1890, en Europe avec les émigrés russes dans l’entre-deux-guerres, ainsi que les tentatives faites par les agents de l’Association américaine pour se fixer en URSS dans les années 1920.Le Mouvement chrétien des jeunes était conçu comme un espace mondial dépassant les frontières nationales. Cette forme d’internationalisme avait pour ambition de surmonter les nombreuses barrières qui divisaient l’humanité en factions nationales, politiques, économiques, sociales, religieuses ou raciales. Il s’agissait d’un projet utopique construit sur la base du protestantisme évangélique. L’universalisme du Mouvement reposait sur l’idée de la « catholicité » de la « communauté chrétienne » et sur la logique des grandes religions de conversion. Les leaders du Mouvement propageaient le « christianisme vivant ». Réfutant une conception du religieux comme besoin mystique et du christianisme comme ensemble de croyances défini une fois pour toutes, centré sur un dogme rigide et sur un rite religieux, ils prônaient un activisme social des chrétiens et leur participation à la résolution de problèmes sociaux concrets. Initialement axé sur la mission d’évangélisation, ce projet universaliste était lui-même un résultat de la sécularisation à laquelle il devait faire face. Affirmant son « respect » vis-à-vis des structures ecclésiastiques « traditionnelles », le Mouvement était guidé par des laïcs. Manifestant une préoccupation relative aux moyens à utiliser pour soigner les malaises de la société industrielle moderne et pour assurer le progrès de l’humanité, ses leaders prétendaient élaborer un « modèle » de l’action chrétienne « moderne », « organisée », capable d’assurer le développement « intégral » (moral, intellectuel, physique et social) des individus, mettant un accent particulier sur la formation des élites. Dans une perspective de long terme, leur ambition était d’assurer une transformation sociale, politique et économique des sociétés humaines. Plusieurs problématiques sont explorées : 1. Le rapport entre, d’une part, les engagements « universalistes » et « nationaux » et, d’autre part, les facteurs qui influençaient les rapports de force entre des cultures nationales différentes et, donc, déterminaient les vecteurs de la circulation d’idées, d’expériences et de pratiques dans ce type de mouvance internationaliste ; 2. Le mécanisme de la pénétration de la YMCA américaine dans un autre pays, en l’occurrence en Russie, et les motifs invoqués pour le justifier ; 3. Le rapport entre la religion et la politique ; 4. Les relations entre les protestants et les chrétiens orthodoxes. L’étude de ces problématiques se décline en plusieurs dimensions structurées par quatre dichotomies principales : « universel » versus « national », « laïque » versus « religieux », « modernité » versus « tradition », « politique » versus « apolitique »
In this thesis we first investigate the creation of a transnational network by the advocates of the Young People’ Global Christian Movement in the West in the latter half of the 19th century. Secondly, we analyze the interaction between the agents of the American branch of the Movement, the American YMCA, and the representatives of the Russian political, economic, religious and intellectual elites in Russia from the end of the 1890s and in Europe with the Russian émigrés in the period between the two world wars. Attempts to implant the American Association in the USSR in the 1920s are also considered.The Young People’ Christian Movement was conceived as a global space transcending national boundaries. The ambition of the advocates of this form of internationalism was to break the barriers of nationalities, politics, economic and social inequalities, religion or race. This utopian project was founded on the values, beliefs and principles of Evangelical Protestantism. The Movement’s universalism was founded on the concept of Christian communities’ “catholicity” and was following the logic of religious conversion. Its leaders were propagating the Vital Christianity. Refuting the conception of religion as a mystic quest and that of Christianity as a set of beliefs defined once and for all and focused on the rigid dogma and on the performance of a religious belief, the leaders of the Global Christian Movement were calling for a social activism of Christians and propagating their capacity to engage in practical problem solving in their own communities. With an initial focus on the mission of evangelization, the Young Christians’ Movement should be a bulwark against the growing secularism of society. However this Universalist project was itself the result of the secularization. Affirming “respect” for the “traditional” ecclesiastical structures, the Movement was guided by laypersons. Demonstrating an active concern for the means to treat the ailments of the modern industrial societies and to assure the progress of humanity, the leaders of the Young Christians’ Movement had an ambition to elaborate a “model” of a “modern” and “organized” Christian action, capable of ensuring the “integral” (moral, intellectual, physical and social) development of the individuals, with a particular emphasis on the training of the elites. Set in a long-term perspective, the ambition of the leaders of the Movement was to assure a complete social, political and economic transformation of human societies. Several problematic issues were explored: 1. The relationship between the “globalist” and “national” commitments, and the factors affecting the power relations between the different national cultures and determining the direction of circulation of ideas, experiences and practices within this internationalist movement; 2. The mechanism of and the motives invoked to justify the penetration of the American YMCA in the other countries, i.e. in Russia; 3. The relationship between religion and politics; 4. The relationship between Protestants and Orthodox Christians. This study addresses four key dichotomies: “universal” versus “national”, “laic” versus “religious”, “modernity” versus “tradition”, “political” versus “apolitical”

Cette thèse porte sur les mouvements français et européens contre le dérèglement climatique et sur les tensions qui les caractérisent : qu’est-ce que lutter quand l’envergure de la catastrophe, l’urgence, et le sentiment d’impuissance prévalent ? Comment continue-t-on à lutter dans un monde en ruines qu’on ne croit plus pouvoir sauver ? Et comment le fait-on lorsqu’on se sait appartenir aux pays responsables (historiquement et encore aujourd’hui) des bouleversements environnementaux sans précédent qui nous arrivent ? L’ethnographie au cœur de cette thèse suit des activistes et collectifs dans la préparation des mobilisations qui ont eu lieu autour de la COP21 (Paris, décembre 2015) ainsi que dans la décomposition-recomposition des luttes climatiques qui l’ont suivie. Ces activistes et collectifs ont pour spécificité d’appartenir à l’espace du mouvement écologiste le moins institutionnalisé : leurs engagements dessinent un continuum d’agirs allant de l’agriculture vivrière à l’action directe. Ils relèvent par ailleurs de la partie du mouvement qui a participé à importer et nourrir un certain cadrage de l’enjeu climatique en France à compter de 2015 : celui de la justice climatique. A partir d’une ethnographie qui s’est aussi vécue comme une expérience à la première personne et un partage de vie aux côtés de ces activistes et collectifs, j’ai cherché à rendre sensibles les cheminements et apprentissages qui se déploient au sein des mouvements climat, comme les essoufflements, les doutes, les joies et les puissances qui s’y éprouvent. Le manuscrit est organisé en deux « volumes » qui correspondent chacun à une grande question adressée aux mouvements contre le dérèglement climatique qui relaie celles que se posent les militant.e.s elleux-mêmes : « quel est le "bon moyen" pour lutter contre le dérèglement du climat ? », et « quel est le "bon sujet politique" du mouvement pour la justice climatique ? ». A rebours de réponses univoques et absolues, je propose de penser ces questions comme des pharmaka au sens d’Isabelle Stengers : en fonction de leur dosage, elles peuvent rendre puissant.e.s comme elles peuvent affaiblir, empoisonner. Chacun des deux volumes est lui-même composé de plusieurs « récits » qui font le travail de décaler ces questions et de montrer leurs effets en situation. Enfin, entre ces « récits » sont intercalés des « ateliers » qui sont la reprise de notes de formations auxquelles j’ai participé dans les mouvements climat depuis 2015
This dissertation focuses on the French and European movements against climate change and on the tensions that characterize them: what does it mean to fight when the scale of the disaster, the sense of urgency and the feeling of powerlessness prevail? How does one keep fighting in a world in rubble, which we do not believe we can save anymore? And how do we do so when we know that we belong to the countries responsible (historically and still today) for the unprecedented environmental disruptions that are happening to us? This ethnography explores the actions of activists and collective groups in the preparation of the mobilizations that took place around the COP21 (Paris, December 2015). It examines the decomposition and re-composition of the struggles against climate change that ensued. The specificity of these activists and collectives is that they belong to the least institutionalized space of the environmental movement: their commitments rested on a continuum of collective actions ranging from food farming to direct action. Moreover, they belong to the part of the movement that has participated in importing and developing the climate justice framing in France since 2015. From this ethnography, which was also lived as a personal experience, whereby I shared moments of life with these activists and collectives, I sought to make tangible the pathways and learnings that unfolded within the climate movements, as well as the breathlessness, doubts, joys and empowerment, which have been experienced in these movements.The manuscript is organized in two "volumes", each of which corresponds to a major question addressed to the movements against climate disruption and which relays those asked by the activists themselves: “What is the ‘right way’ to fight against climate disruption?” and “What is the ‘right political subject’ of the movement for climate justice?” In contrast to univocal and absolute answers, I propose to think about these questions as pharmaka in the sense of Isabelle Stengers: depending on their dosage, they can empower or weaken, poison. Each of the two volumes is itself composed of several “stories”, which are used to shift these questions and showing their effects in situation. Finally, between these stories I have interspersed “workshops”, which are the summary of notes I took during trainings, in which I participated in the climate movements since 2015

Le mouvement pour les communs a émergé après la crise économique de 2007-2008 sous la forme d'une série de pratiques de résistance à la privatisation croissante des ressources et des services promue par la politique néolibérale. Les activistes ont revendiqué le droit d'utiliser et d'accéder à toutes les choses et à tous les espaces de propriété publique ou privée dont l'usage permet l'exercice des droits fondamentaux, également dans l'intérêts des générations futures. Un élément clé du mouvement a donc été la critique de la notion de propriété privée prédominante dans les systèmes juridiques occidentaux et l'expérimentation d'une vision non absolue et non individualiste de la propriété conçue comme un instrument de redistribution des ressources. La relation entre le mouvement pour les communs et le droit est étroite, car dans plusieurs cas les communautés qui les ont revendiqués ont eu recours, parmi leur tactiques, à un usage contre-hégémonique d'outils juridiques.Cette recherche examine la catégorie des communs selon une perspective politico-juridique et intègre cette analyse avec celle d'une étude de cas sur la trajectoire des communs à Palerme dans la décennie d'après-crise 2009-2019. L'investigation des pratiques menées par des activistes revendiquant les beni comuni dans le chef-lieu sicilien montre comment la praxis des communs a été progressivement cooptée dans le cadre administratif de la municipalité et est devenue une technique gouvernementale cruciale pour établir un contrôle public sur l'espace urbain. Dans ce cas le droit n'a pas agi comme un instrument émancipateur entre les mains des activistes, mais plutôt comme un outil mobilisé par l'acteur public afin d'apprivoiser le potentiel transformatif des communs. La trajectoire du mouvement à Palerme offre donc un point de vue sur comment la rationalité néolibérale opère aujourd'hui dans un scénario urbain du sud de l'Europe, c'est-à-dire en extrayant de la valeur des pratiques spatiales informelles historiquement enracinées dans ces contextes
The movement for the commons has emerged in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 economic crisis as a range of practices of resistance to the increasing privatization of resources and services promoted by neoliberal politics. Activists have claimed the right to use and access all the things and spaces which, either publicly- or privately-owned, allow the exercise of fundamental rights also in the interest of future generations. A key component of the movement has thus been the critique of the notion of private property predominating in Western legal systems and the experimentation of a non-absolute, non-individualistic vision of ownership conceived as an instrument of resource redistribution. The relation between the movement for the commons and the law is tight, as in several cases communities reclaiming them have resorted to a counter-hegemonic use of legal tools among their tactics. This work examines the category of the commons from a politico-legal perspective and integrates this analysis with the one of a case study on the trajectory of the commons in Palermo in the post-crisis decade 2009-2019. The review of the practices carried out by activists reclaiming beni comuni in the Sicilian city highlights that the praxis of the commons has gradually been co-opted within the administrative framework of the municipality and has turned into a crucial governmental technique to establish public control on the urban space. In this case, the law has not acted as an emancipatory instrument in the hands of activists, but rather as a tool exploited by the public actor to tame the transformative potential of the commons. The path of the movement in Palermo thus provides an angle to observe how the neoliberal rationality operates today in a Southern European urban scenario, that is, by extracting value from the informal spatial practices historically rooted in these contexts

Det här är en uppsats som behandlar demokratisynen hos deltagare vid European Social Forum 2008 i Malmö. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om det finns samband mellan erfarenheter av politiska handlingar, identifiering med den globala rättviserörelsen och synen på hur demokratiska beslut i allmänhet bör fattas. Individer inom den globala rättviserörelsen kan ses som handlande subjekt inom utvecklingen av demokratiska system, då rörelsen formulerar en kritik mot globalisering och odemokratiska beslutsformer och strävar efter att möjliggöra en annan form av globalisering och en annan form av demokrati. Teoretiskt tar undersökningen avstamp i tre idealtypiska demokratiformer: deltagardemokrati, deliberativ demokrati och representativ demokrati, som har tre skilda utgångspunkter när det gäller former för beslutsprocesser. Även politiskt handlande går att skilja åt teoretiskt, i form av kollektivt och individuellt politiskt handlande. Genom en statistisk analys i form av faktoranalys och regression i verktyget SPSS har jag visat att erfarenheter påverkar synen på demokrati. En deltagardemokratisk syn främjas bland annat av en stark identifiering med den globala rättviserörelsen, erfarenhet av konfrontativa politiska handlingar och erfarenhet av deltagardemokratiska mötesformer. En deliberativ demokratisyn främjas bland annat av en stark identifiering med den globala rättviserörelsen, erfarenhet av konfrontativa politiska handlingar och erfarenhet av deliberativt demokratiska mötesformer. En representativ demokratisyn främjas av erfarenhet av rörelse- och föreningsaktivitet på europeisk nivå och erfarenhet av representativt och informativt politiskt handlande. Resultaten visar också att individers demokratisyn är komplex och ofta innehåller element från flera olika idealtypiska demokratimodeller.

This is a thesis about views on democracy among participants at the European Social Forum in Malmö 2008. The aim is to study if there are any statistical connections between experience of political actions, identification with the global justice movement and the view on democracy. The theoretical frames of the thesis are twofold: theories on democracy and theories on political actions. Democracy is divided into three different systems: participatory democracy, deliberative democracy and representative democracy. Political actions are divided into collective and individual political actions. By carrying out a statistical analysis through regression and factor analysis am I able to confirm that an experience of political actions have a statistical influence on an individual view on democracy. A participatory view is influenced by a strong identification with the global justice movement, experiences of confrontation as political method and experiences of participatory ways of making political decisions. A deliberative view is influenced by a strong identification with the global justice movement, experiences of confrontation as political method and experiences of deliberative ways of making decisions. A representative view on democracy is influenced by experiences of European movement- or association activity and experiences of representative and informative political actions. The results show that individual’s view on democracy is a question of great complexity and is often containing elements from different democratic ideals.

The thesis is related to transnational social movements’ production of knowledge. Particularly, the research investigates the developed norms and pathways of a Palestinian-transnational movement (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement- The BDS movement) during its formation period. The thesis reviews major social movement theories (i.e. Sidney Tarrow and Margeret Sikkink). While benefiting from major aspects of these theories, the thesis discovers that the researched movement suggests major deviations from these theories. Hence, the thesis mobilizes other literature, particularly of Pierre Bourdieu, to better account for cultural and social dimensions. This choice is enforced by the presence of academics that form a pillar in the movement. Yet, the thesis mobilizes together diverse dimensions from social movement literature, sociology and history (i.e. the historical trajectory of individual and collective actors), and with a constant check with the case itself. The methodological choice of the research goes back and forth between theories and the case (abductive methodology). Two chapters of the thesis are dedicated to the agency of the Palestinian actors in addition to interactions inside the field of power in Palestine. Another two chapters discuss transnational relations with a focus on European actors. Specific cases are chosen from interactions with Belgian and British actors. Moreover, interactions in three transnational fora are discussed.The research concludes that this transnational movement infuses diverse norms from different experiences and regions while adhering to universal norms such as comprehensive human rights. Moreover, the movement follows diverse pathways that include a Palestinian emergence, a Global Southern path and through the North. And these pathways enforce the adherence of the movement to specific norms. Such findings diverge from “Euro-centric” approaches in discussed social movements’ literature in the thesis. The research finally discusses other literature more relevant to the case (i.e. by Amitav Acharya), which argues that local actors try to protect their norms from abuse by central forces, and they do not only import norms but also diffuse new norms. The thesis ends up with questions for further research on the patterns of norms diffusion.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis is a study of an attempt to help create a transnational movement against the nuclear arms race and the Cold War in the 1980s. The attempt began with the drafting and launch of the Appeal for European Nuclear Disarmament in early 1980. The thesis describes and analyses the work of the British group, European Nuclear Disarmament, or END, which was founded in order to further the aims outlined in the Appeal. The thesis examines END's work in three, overlapping, geographical areas: Britain, where END acted mainly as a pressure group on and/or ginger group within CND in an attempt to internationalize - END-ize - its work; in Western Europe (including Britain), where END (with other Western peace groups) was trying to create and sustain enduring ties amongst Western peace groups; and across the East-West divide, where END was one of a number of groups that engaged in dialogue with independent forces in the Soviet bloc - while maintaining relations with the regimes - with the aim of creating some kind of pan-European alliance that would bring together above all these forces and Western peace groups. The study is conducted in terms of an explanatory framework that emphasizes the pre-existing networks out of which END emerged; the distinctive END worldview or 'frame' and the ways in which END supporters campaigned in its terms, tried to persuade others to adopt it, and/or adapted it - above all in dialogue with independent groups in the Soviet bloc; the resources and structure that helped determine the work END activists could do; the way in which this campaigning was shaped by END's relationship with other peace groups, in Britain above all CND; and the political opportunities and constraints that END activists faced. To date there has been no full-length study of END nor one that analyses the various dimensions of its campaign and how they shaped each other. This thesis thus aims to be a contribution to our knowledge of the West European peace movements of the 1980s; it also hopes to add to our understanding of transnational social-movement campaigning.

Aquesta tesi explora la influència dels moviments contra l’austeritat a les institucions europees, a través de l’anàlisi del cas del Parlament Europeu. Es focalitza en les idees de democràcia dels moviments que estaven basades en una concepció deliberativa de democràcia. La recerca es basa en una anàlisi qualitativa i utilitza l’anàlisi de marcs per tal d’observar fins a quin punt les idees dels moviments han tingut un impacte en el Parlament Europeu. D’altra banda, s’han tingut en compte elements contextuals seguint una aproximació d’estructures d’oportunitats polítiques i discursives. La present tesi utilitza els debats sobre l’Estat de la Unió des del 2010 fins al 2017, set debats sobre la crisi grega del deute des del 2010 fins al 2015, i entrevistes personals a eurodiputats. També s’ha utilitzat la recerca prèvia sobre moviments contra l’austeritat i evidència documental dels moviments. Els debats al Parlament Europeu s’han analitzat utilitzant els marcs d’austeritat i democràcia dels moviments. Addicionalment, les entrevistes s’han dut a terme per avaluar la concepció de democràcia dels eurodiputats i la seva opinió sobre els moviments contra l’austeritat i la seva influència. Els resultats indiquen que tot i que els impactes en el Parlament Europeu han sigut limitats, els eurodiputats d’esquerres han replicat algunes idees dels moviments. Per tant, es confirma que els aliats són importants per assegurar impactes amb l’ús dels marcs compartits dels moviments. A més a més, s’ha detectat que la ideologia és decisiva en les conseqüències dels moviments en aquesta institució. Per tant, els resultats confirmen que tal com la recerca prèvia ha demostrat, la Unió Europea també és una àrea adequada per a accions de protesta. Aquesta tesi alhora obre més preguntes sobre les conseqüències de la concepció de democràcia deliberativa practicada pels moviments contra l’austeritat i la seva pressió per eixamplar i aprofundir la democràcia a llarg termini. D’altra banda, una comparació entre els països de la Unió Europea sobre l’impacte dels moviments contra l’austeritat contribuiria a una millor definició de la influència dels moviments a la Unió Europea. Futures investigacions també haurien d’analitzar la influència dels moviments en altres institucions europees i internacionals. Finalment, altres aspectes relacionats amb el canviant context tecnològic global i la seva relació amb les transformacions en la política haurien de ser examinats.
This thesis explores the influence of anti-austerity movements in the European institutions, analysing the case of the European Parliament. It focuses on the ideas of democracy espoused by the movements, based on a deliberative conception of democracy. The research builds on a qualitative analysis approach and uses frame analysis in order to observe to what extent the movements’ ideas have had an impact on the European Parliament. Moreover, contextual elements are also taken into account, using a political and discursive opportunities approach. The thesis draws on the State of the Union debates from 2010 to 2017, seven debates on the Greek debt crisis from 2010 to 2015, and personal interviews with MEPs. Previous research on anti-austerity movements and documentary evidence from the movements have also been used. The debates in the European Parliament have been analysed using the austerity and democracy frames from the movements. In addition, interviews have been conducted to assess MEPs’ conception of democracy and opinions about anti-austerity movements and their influence. The findings show that even though the impacts in the EP have been limited, left-wing MEPs have replicated some ideas from the movements. Therefore, allies are found to be important in securing outcomes with the use of shared frames from the movements. Moreover, ideology has been detected as decisive in the movement’s outcomes in that institution. Hence, the findings confirm that as previous research has shown, the EU is also a suitable arena for protest actions. In turn, the thesis raises more questions about the outcomes of the conception of deliberative democracy practiced by anti-austerity movements and their pressure for widening and deepening democracy in the long term. Eventually, a comparison between EU countries on the impact of the anti-austerity movements would further contribute to better define the influence of the movements in the EU. Future research should also analyze the influence of anti-austerity movements in other European and international institutions. Lastly, other aspects related to the changing global technological context and their relation to transformations in politics should be examined.

As a response to the growing global sustainability challenges related to industrial agriculture, alternative approaches of food production and distribution are emerging. One approach that fosters direct consumer-producer relationships and sustainable local food production is known as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). This study explored how the CSA movement can be supported strategically towards a flourishing movement in Europe. A qualitative research approach was chosen with a comparative element of the two countries with contrastive characteristics in terms of the degree of successfulness of the movement; with France being successful and Sweden having less success in terms of the number of CSAs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 CSA farmers, network members and researchers. The results revealed barriers and enablers for a flourishing movement under five overarching themes: (1) Definition, structure and operation (2) The direction of the movement (3) Social aspects (4) Knowledge and communication, and (5) Country-/region-specific aspects. Crucial factors and contrastive features between countries were identified and discussed in relation to how they hinder or enable a flourishing movement. Based on the findings, strategic guidelines were developed with the aim of contributing to CSA practitioners and leaders in Europe.

La sociologia si è occupata a lungo delle migrazioni come un problema sociale. Tuttavia, di recente, è stato dimostrato che queste si differenziano su basi sociali, economiche, culturali e di genere. Da tale differenziazione, questa ricerca decostruisce il concetto di migrazione, includendo l’analisi della classe sociale come componente fondamentale per la comprensione del fenomeno. Dalla crisi del 2008, il gap socio-economico tra Nord e Sud Europa si è allargato, producendo nuovi flussi migratori. In dieci anni, in capitali come Londra e Berlino il numero di giovani sud europei è quasi raddoppiato. Anche se l’immigrazione è divenuta centrale nelle politiche europee e nella ricerca sociologica, questi flussi hanno suscitato scarso interesse. In contesti di crescita demografica e aumento dei prezzi delle case, come Berlino, i migranti sud-europei sono considerati, da una parte, migranti economici, dall’altra come giovani in cerca di uno stile di vita urbano e cosmopolita nei quartieri in via di gentrificazione. La ricerca analizza le ragioni politiche ed analitiche alla base dei processi di categorizzazione della mobilità. Per farlo, si considera questa come risorsa che genera reddito, ma in un modo iniquo. Quali sono I modi in cui la classe sociale influenza la mobilità e come questa viene incorporata in un regime di governance della migrazione? Come va intesa la relazione tra mobilità e processi di formazione di classe? La ricerca oscilla tra queste domande, contribuendo ai campi dell’analisi della classe sociale e degli studi sulla migrazione in due modi distinti. In primo luogo, la parte teorica volge all’analisi dell’ascesa, del declino e della riscoperta del concetto di classe sociale, problematizzandone le teorie. Inoltre, si riconsidera il concetto Weberiano della “condotta di vita” per comprendere il ruolo dei rapporti di produzione e di riproduzione. In secondo luogo quindi, la parte empirica della ricerca, basata su una web survey, 40 interviste e 3 focus groups, studia i modi di accesso alle risorse sviluppati da giovani italiani emigrati a Berlino. Si illustra come questi abbiano una condotta di vita basata su un continuo imperativo a muoversi che esonda dal campo della mobilità spaziale a quello del lavoro, o anche alle relazioni. Si analizza come i giovani migranti siano coinvolti da processi di differenziazione sociale nel mercato del lavoro e in quello abitativo; in che modo interagiscano con i processi di “inclusione differenziale” influenzati sia dall'economia che dall'istituzione statale. La logica del “the best and the brightest” si manifesta già con le procedure per la registrazione anagrafica, cruciale per stabilizzarsi in città. Così viene riconosciuto lo status formale di migranti dell’Unione Europea e assegnato un posto all’interno della “gerarchia di cittadinanza”. Coloro che invece rimangono a lungo esclusi dall’ottenimento della registrazione, continuano ad essere considerati come turisti, vivendo esperienze di estremo sfruttamento e deprivazione. Esposti alle forze centrifughe della precarietà abitativa, occupazionale e relazionale; molti sviluppano una quotidianità marcata dal consumo di droghe e dal clubbing. La ricerca mostra come gli stessi migranti contribuiscano a definire i confini simbolici tra i meritevoli e i non, partendo dall'etica del lavoro o di un misurato edonismo. In conclusione la ricerca dimostra come la migrazione di giovani dal Sud verso il Nord dell’Europa, tutt’altro che “libera” e priva di attriti e condizionamenti, sia gestita localmente con un' “inclusione differenziale”. La governance della migrazione non punta infatti ad una riduzione del fenomeno, ma ad una sua intensificazione e all'attivazione di una mobilità permanente. Così, se la mobilità diventa una risorsa, economica innanzitutto, la questione centrale nella società contemporanea riguarda la proprietà di questa risorsa ed il suo controllo.
For long time research has studied migration as a social problem, focusing on the disadvantages connected with it. However, it has recently proved that migration has become increasingly differentiated along social, economic, gender and cultural lines. Against this diversifying background, the research intends to unravel the concept of migration by introducing social class as a crucial intervening variable. Since the economic crisis started in 2008, the social and economic gap between the North and the South of Europe has widened. A major effect has been the increase of migratory flows of young people. In metropolises like Berlin or London, young South Europeans have almost doubled within ten years. While migration has become a central node of European politics and research, however, these migratory flows have been largely neglected. In urban contexts characterized by growing population and exploding rent prices, such as Berlin, young South Europeans are framed at one time as economic migrants repopulating the guest workers routes and lifestyle migrants moving to the gentrifying neighborhoods of the city. The research questions the political and analytical grounds of such processes of categorization of human mobility. It suggests considering mobility as an income-generating resource unevenly distributed across the population. The exploration of differentials of mobility, i.e. the different access to power and control over fixity and mobility, is the analytical key to open the black-box of migration. How does the social class of migrants affect their mobility and the ways how it is incorporated into a migration regime? How is mobility related to processes of class formation in contemporary capitalism? The analysis oscillates between the two research questions, contributing to the fields of Class Analysis and Migration Research in two distinct ways. Firstly, the theoretical part tackles the rise, decline and renaissance of the class concept, showing the blind spots of class analysis. It pleads for the re-discovery of the Weberian concept of life conduct to hold together the role of production and reproduction in people´s practices of livelihood. Secondly, the empirical part, i.e. a web survey, 40 interviews and 3 focus groups, explains how Italian migrants access resources in Berlin developing a life conduct predicated on mobility. The imperative to move spills over from the domain of spatial mobility into the domain of work, with the refusal of doing the same job “forever”, and into that of reproduction, with the construction of flexible forms of emotional engagement. Newcomers enter processes of social differentiation on the housing and labor market, in interaction with “differential inclusion” operated by state and market. The logic of “the best and the brightest” applies to them via a mix of requirements for getting a registration, the key to fixing oneself to the city. Once registered, they formally become migrant subjects placed in a quite privileged position within the hierarchy of citizenship status. Those who are stuck in the fatiguing process of registering, however, are formally considered as tourists, while they are experiencing deprivation and hyper-exploitation. Exposed to strong centrifugal forces such as housing, occupational and relational precarity, they often engage in clubbing and drugs. The research highlights how migrants participate in the construction of symbolic boundaries between deserving and undeserving movers, based on the valorization of hard work and moderated hedonism. Finally, migration from the South to the North of Europe, far from being “free” and frictionless, is managed by processes of differential inclusion placed at the local level. Endless mobilization, rather than migration reduction, appears as the main policy goal for the governance of intra-EU migration. If mobility is a resource, then, the crucial issue is about its ownership and control in contemporary societies.

This thesis is a study of the development of the European Marches Network against Unemployment, Job Insecurity and Social Exclusion. It is considered as a component of an emerging international social movement that has contested the consequences of neoliberal European integration to develop the goal of a social and democratic Europe as part of a different world order. This study engages critically with the dominant sociological paradigm of social movements that renders the class politics associated with the labour movement as anachronistic. This paradigm asserts that fundamental socio-structural changes dictate that to be progressive, contemporary new social movements (NSMs) have to operate according to a new logic of collective action that is beyond class. The Network is investigated through the application of ethnographic methods that are integrated into a dialectical analysis. This methodological approach involved the author taking the role of `activist-researcher' that was consistent with his commitment to producing knowledge that was not only about progressive social change but also useful to the collective struggle to achieve it. The findings of the empirical investigation are presented under the headings of 'mobilisation', 'agenda formation' and 'organisation'. These headings represent three interconnected elements of collective action that form the totality of the Network. The Network is related to the locally and nationally based economic and social struggles through which it developed and is also located within a broader international social movement of which it was a product and producer. Various elements of the Network arising from the investigation are discussed in relation to the work of writers from the dominant paradigm. It is argued that the Network is not comprehensible as a manifestation of a postmaterial politics that is beyond class, but rather as a form of class politics in the present conjuncture of neoliberal restructuring. Therefore, it is concluded that far from indicating the terminal decline of labour as a progressive social actor, the Network suggests its renewal as a social movement.

The free movement of persons in the EU has been fraught with tension since the Eastern enlargements. This culminated in 2016 when the UK demanded the possibility to limit rights and benefits to intra-EU migrants, making for a fresh investigation into the state of the free movement. From a constructivist perspective of rights and citizenship this in-depth case study aims to elucidate how EU actors describe the free movement of persons. It will further look at how they situate limitations and obstacles and analyze what this reflects in terms of underlying logics and rationales of rights and citizenship in the EU free movement regime. The interviews with EU actors reveal how distinctions of politically constructed categories of migrants which define Insiders and Outsiders are used to rationalize who has the right to social rights. Inclusion is defined in terms of market liberalism and individual responsibility, logics which thus also define the Insiders of Europe. This produces an image of the EU citizen and indirectly defines those who diverge from this image as Outsiders, including “lesser” Europeans. The underlying logics within the EU could therefore contribute to negative perceptions of those who cannot meet the requirements of the ideal European.

Yikhus--the salient feature of the Jewish aristocracy--may be defined as a type of prestige deriving from the achievements of one's forbears and living family members in the scholarly, mystical, or, to a lesser degree, economic realms. Unlike land acquisition, by which the non-Jewish aristocracy preserved itself, yikhus was intimately linked with achievement in the above realms, requiring a continual infusion of new talent from each generation of a particular family.
A question which has yet to be resolved is the extent to which the founders of Hasidism, a mystical revivalist movement that swept Eastern European Jewish communities from the second half of the eighteenth century until the Holocaust, challenged prevailing notions of yikhus. The question relates to the identities of Hasidism's leaders--the Zaddikim--themselves. If, as the older historiography claims, the Zaddikim emerged from outside the elite stratum, and therefore lacked yikhus, they might be expected to challenge a notion which would threaten their perceived right to lead. If, on the other hand, the Zaddikim were really the same scions of noble Jewish families who had always led the communities, they would probably uphold the value of yikhus. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The emergence of supranational organizations like the European Union (EU) raises questions fundamental to the sociological study of regions and nation-states. Hypothetically, the EU could provide regions within nation-states most of the governmental services that they currently receive from the state. For regions with strong ethnic and cultural identities that have sought to break away from the nation-state over time, decreased political and economic dependency may provide the autonomy that they have been seeking. On the other hand, if the emergence of supranational organizations like the EU represents state-building at the global level, then the EU can pose a threat to regional groups seeking autonomy from the nation-state. At issue is how the growing influence of supranational organizations like the EU is affecting the demand for autonomy within ethnically, politically, and culturally distinct regions. This dissertation attempts to answer these questions by examining variations in nationalism over time for three regions in Spain (Basque Country, Galicia, Catalonia) from 1977-2002. In order to begin to answer this question, I created a new dataset of protest events in Spain in order to assess variations in demands for autonomy over time. The protest event counts were incorporated into a comparative historical analysis that seeks to explain the effects of the influence of the evolving European Union (EU) on contentious demands for autonomy within those three regions; the variations in the protest event counts over time were analyzed against additional economic and political data collected from archival materials. I find that, while nationalism declined overall over time, it did not disappear but rather took on a different character. The classical manifestations of nationalism transformed into distinct movements centered on human rights. I argue that this transformation took place as a result of three interrelated factors: 1) Forced cooperation between the regions and the central Spanish government; 2) Elite abandonment of the nationalist movement; and 3) The state of the regional economies. In contrast to what extant theory might predict, my results indicate that nationalism continues to exist for the following reasons: 1) The EU has not rendered the nation-state irrelevant, but rather has altered their competencies; 2) The EU has not resolved the tensions between the nation-state and regions, but rather has created new ones; and 3) The EU has not leveled the economic playing-field between regions, but rather has opened them up to new forms of competition. In conclusion, this dissertation argues that supranational organizations like the EU have altered the relationship between regions and nation-states, thus transforming - but not solving - the nationalist question.

When the world becomes drowned in multiple global problems and citizens do not see any real progressive solutions from their governments, they take the initiative in their own hands and start changing the world on their own. The Transition Town movement was born this way. It is a social movement which aims at building resilient local communities in response to climate change, peak oil and an unfair ecologically destructive economic system which is probably soon to break down. As a potentially strong actor of future social change, it is worth studying emerging local movements in Europe, and hopefully identifying new potentials for success of these grass-root innovations.The study, thus, aims to investigate the relation between the participants of the Transition Movement Sweden and the supranational/intergovernmental entity EU, which plays one of the key roles in economic, environmental and social aspects of Swedish citizens. By conducting interviews with participants of the movement in several Swedish cities, the nature of this relationship is being explored. Using the theory of Multi-Institutional Politics Approach the case study explains the connection between the movement and the EU.

The Romani Women’s Association Drom Kotar Mestipen (DKM) was at the centre of this academic investigation. The association is based in Barcelona, Catalonia and their approach to engaging with Roma women and advocating for gender equality using Successful Educational Actions, and understanding, if their methodology could have a positive impact on Roma women from other EU countries, was at the core of this thesis. The goal of the research was twofold: to identify the DKM’s methodology and to understand if this egalitarian methodology was transferable to other contexts and allowed the “other women” to participate in dialogic conversations where Romani feminist discourse was at the centre. In this instance, I selected five different European countries that each had an established Roma population and worked alongside organisations and other grassroots Roma women, and I attempted to discern the exclusionary practices that Roma women and youth face in those countries. After better understanding those barriers, the application of the DKM methodology was inserted and then an analysis of the outcomes of applying the dialogic methodology took place. This thesis has outlined the gaps that exist within Feminist and Roma Studies in relation to the inclusion of grassroots Roma women and girls and highlights the ability that the community has to approach their problems from an intersectional perspective, identify the barriers that impede their active participation and also identified the transformation many of the participants experienced as a result of applying the DKM’s methodology to their living and working environment. Employing Communicative Methodology facilitated my working alongside the participants, resulting in this academic study to directly reflect their voices. In summary, the women and organisations interviewed, are helping to construct a narrative that is tackling covert and overt racism.

La présente thèse porte sur la mise en place des nouvelles manifestations festives en France, et plus particulièrement à Paris, depuis les années 80. Ces fêtes marquent un déplacement par rapport aux fêtes « traditionnelles » qui étaient en grande partie organisées autour des concepts de sacré et de nation. Nourri par une observation ethnographique de plusieurs années, ce travail met en évidence une multiplicité de facettes des fêtes nouvelles: les processus de conceptualisation et de création par les autorités publiques ; leur gestion et mise en œuvre par des managers culturels ou par des associations et des collectifs ; l’invention de nouvelles formes rituelles ou l’adaptation de plus anciennes ; les mises en scène urbaines et l’emploi des codes distinctifs ; l’appropriation de ces fêtes par la société et les différents débats qu’elles ont soulevés. Chacune des trois parties de la thèse est consacrée à une fête. Une place majeure est réservée à la Fête de la musique, la Marche des fiertés et la Nuit blanche, sans pour autant passer sous silence d’autres fêtes résolument nouvelles et d’envergure, telles que la Capitale européenne de la culture et les Allumées de Nantes, permettant de mieux saisir les mutations qui s’opèrent au niveau européen. Enfin, s’appuyant sur la thèse classique de Durkheim, ce travail propose d’envisager ces fêtes comme points d’entrée pour appréhender les idéaux de la société ouverte. L’intention affirmée des organisateurs de mettre en place une nouvelle conception du vivre ensemble et du lien social, est à bien des égards l’occasion de célébrer une société française et européenne, pacifique, réconciliée et tolérante
The present thesis examines the installation of new festive events in France, and more particularly in Paris, since the 80s. These celebrations mark a shift in regard to "traditional" celebrations which mostly revolve around the concepts of the sacred and the nation. Nourished by an ethnographic observation of several years, this work highlights a variety of aspects: the process of their invention and their creation and by the public authorities; the supervision of the events by cultural managers or associations and collectives; the invention of new ritual forms and the adaptation of older ones; the design of the urban scenery and the use of distinctive codes; the appropriation of these events fro, the society and the various debates to which they gave rise. Each part of the thesis deals with a celebration in an independent way. The Fête de la musique, the Gay Pride and the Nuit blanche are analyzed here in priority. However, next to them parade also other events, entirely new and ambitious, such as the European Capital of Culture and the Allumées of Nantes which offer a better insight into changes that took place on a European level. Finally, based on Durkheim's classic thesis, this work proposes to consider these festive events as an entry point into a greater inquiry about the ideals of the open society. The asserted intention of the organizers to put in place a new conception of living together and the social bond is in many ways the occasion to celebrate a French and European society, that is peaceful, reconciled and tolerant

This thesis analyzes the evolution of European social policy via focusing on the unfolding contentions between two different notions that disagree over Europe&rsquo
s direction regarding the best social-economic system in Europe. Taking its point of departure in the ratification crisis and the impasse surrounding the Constitutional Treaty, the thesis argues that the contrasting interpretations of the Treaty and the attendant cleavages in the European polity are illustrations of such ongoing ideological struggles among alternative paradigms and approaches. Naming these contending approaches as &ldquo
project of neoliberalism&rdquo
and &ldquo
project of regulated capitalism&rdquo
, the evolution of European social policy is investigated with a focus on interplays between these projects
the self-transformation of the projects in the course of integration
and the relations between economic and social governance in the construction of an &ldquo
ever closer Union&rdquo
. To this purpose, the thesis theoretically employs Polanyian conceptual framework of &ldquo
double movement&rdquo
alongside theoretical approaches of Streeck, Hooghe&
Marks, and Pochet that view the evolution of European social policy in conflictual encounters between two opposing notions. Against this theoretical background, the thesis surveys the integration history from the Treaty of Rome until the Lisbon Treaty of 2007. It concludes that the European social policy has evolved within interplays among projects of neoliberalism and regulated capitalism and there has always been an asymmetric relationship between the economic and social governance in Europe as the social governance has always had a secondary and even a subservient position with regard to economic governance in the European polity.

Le fait que dès ses années d'exil scandinave, entre 1933 et 1947, le jeune Willy Brandt se lance dans le débat sur l'avenir d'une Europe unifiée et en propose des conditions concrètes de réalisation est encore très largement méconnu. Pourtant, la question de l'Europe jalonne les écrits d'exil du jeune socialiste réfugié en Norvège. Cette thèse de doctorat met en lumière ces primes idées européennes, le « rêve des Etats-Unis d’Europe », que Willy Brandt développe en exil. Elle interroge non seulement le rôle de l’exil scandinave dans l’émergence d’une pensée fédérale européenne chez Brandt, mais également la teneur de son projet et son éventuelle originalité. Cette étude repose sur un corpus de textes écrits de la main de Willy Brandt en Scandinavie entre 1933 et 1947. Dans ses ouvrages consacrés à la politique internationale, dans ses articles rédigés pour la presse ouvrière mais aussi, parfois, dans sa correspondance personnelle, l’objectif est d’identifier, dans une perspective d’analyse du discours, le motif de l’Europe unie et de l’analyser en contexte afin de le comprendre et de discerner ses potentielles évolutions. Cette étude se base sur des sources originales et pour partie non exploitées, ce qui a nécessité un travail conséquent de recherches en archives mais aussi, dans la mesure où Brandt publie à cette époque en norvégien et en suédois, l’apprentissage des langues scandinaves. Cette thèse de doctorat montre que par son influence contextuelle et culturelle, l’exil scandinave a marqué la pensée européenne de Brandt et que son modèle d’Europe sociale et démocratique porte indéniablement l’empreinte du socialisme scandinave
The fact that during his Scandinavian exile between 1933 and 1947, the young Willy Brandt has been engaged in the debate about the future Europe and even proposed concrete conditions for its realization is still largely unknown. Still, the question of Europe marked out his exile writings and was as such the focus of particular attention from the young socialist refugee in Norway as early as 1939. This doctoral thesis aims to highlight these early European ideas, the “dream of the United States of Europe”, that Willy Brandt developed during his exile. It shall question not only the role of his Scandinavian exile on the emergence of a European federal thought in Brandt’s exile writings, but also the content of his project, its particularities and furthermore its possible originality. At a time when resistance groups were massively discussing the idea of the European unification, what may characterize Brandt's proposal for Europe? And how did these first European ideas evolve during the Second World War as the contexts of conception and communication also changed. To answer these questions, this PhD thesis is based on the analysis of texts written by Willy Brandt in Scandinavia between 1933 and 1947. The corpus consists of three types of documents: books or monographs about the war and the global international context, journalistic writings (newspaper articles, brochures, pamphlets, conference manuscripts all signed by Brandt between 1933 and 1947) and personal correspondence. The objective has been to identify in all these exile writings the motive of Europe as well as any other element relating to the theme of a united Europe or likely to be part of a more general reflection on international politics and the new post-war European order. This thesis has the particularity of being based essentially on original documents and hitherto largely unexploited sources, which has required a considerable amount of archival research. Moreover, since the sources used in this PhD thesis were written in Norwegian, Swedish and German, learning two Scandinavian languages, namely Norwegian and Swedish, was necessary. This study shows that through its contextual and cultural influence, the Scandinavian exile marked the emergence and evolution of Brandt’s European ideas between 1933 and 1947. The model of a social and democratic Europe the young Brandt dreamed of and developed during the Second World War undeniably bears the imprint of Scandinavia, and in particular Scandinavian socialism. By doing so, the thesis sheds new light on Willy Brandt’s political foothold and shows the importance of his exile years in the formation of a statesman and his foreign and European policy
Die Tatsache, dass Willy Brandt während seines Exils in Skandinavien zurinternationalen Diskussion über die Zukunft eines vereinten Europas beigetragen, und sogarkonkrete Bedingungen für eine künftige Einigung des Kontinents vorgeschlagen hat, ist nochkaum beachtet worden. In seinen Exilschriften tauchte das Thema „Europa“ allerdings immerwieder auf. Vor allem ab 1939 schenkte der junge Flüchtling dem Projekt einer künftigeneuropäischen Einigung besondere Aufmerksamkeit. Zum ersten Mal wird in der vorliegendenForschungsarbeit ein eingehender Überblick über Willy Brandts Europavorstellungen im Exil,deren Ursprung und deren Entwicklung, angeboten, und zwar im Rückgriff auf ursprüngliche,zum Teil bisher unbenutzte Quellen aus deutschem und skandinavischem Archivmaterial.Die Dissertation setzt sich zum Ziel, die Entstehung und die Entwicklung von WillyBrandts frühen Europavorstellungen im besonderen Kontext des skandinavischen Exilszwischen 1933 und 1947 zu analysieren, und fragt folgendes: Inwiefern hat das Exil inSkandinavien die Entstehung und die Ausformung von Brandts außenpolitischenKonzeptionen dauerhaft geprägt? Willy Brandts journalistische und literarische Schriften aus der Exilzeit zwischen 1933und 1947, die ein umfangsreiches Archiv aus Zeitungs-, bzw. Zeitschriftenartikeln, Büchern,Broschüren und gemeinsamen Veröffentlichungen bilden, liegen der vorliegendenForschungsarbeit zugrunde. Ziel ist es gewesen, in diesen Exilschriften das Motiv „Europa“sowie jedes andere Element zu identifizieren und zu erörtern, das sich auf das Thema einesvereinten Europas beziehen oder Teil einer allgemeineren Reflexion über die internationalePolitik und die neue europäische Nachkriegsordnung sein dürfte.Die Besonderheit dieses Forschungskorpus besteht in seiner Mehrsprachigkeit. Die imRahmen des vorliegenden Forschungsprojekts benutzten Texte und Manuskripte wurdennämlich auf Deutsch aber auch auf Norwegisch und auf Schwedisch verfasst. Wichtig war esin dieser Hinsicht, die Originalfassungen heranzuziehen, und damit der gesamtenForschungsarbeit nicht nur Authentizität sondern auch Originalität zu verleihen. In diesemZusammenhang gehörte das Erlernen von zwei skandinavischen Sprachen, nämlichNorwegisch und Schwedisch, natürlich auch zu den Grundlagen des Projekts.Diese Studie hat gezeigt, dass das skandinavische Exil die Entstehung und dieAusformung von Brandts frühen Europavorstellungen zwischen 1933 und 1947 kontextuellund inhaltlich geprägt hat. Im Modell des sozialistischen und demokratischen Europa, wovoner im Exil träumte und das er im Laufe des Zweiten Weltkrieges weiter entwickelte, lassensich nämlich etliche programmatische, kulturelle und politische Einflüsse der skandinavischen– und insbesondere der norwegischen – Sozialdemokratie erkennen. Dabei hat die vorliegendeDissertation die Bedeutung des skandinavischen Exils für die menschliche und politischeEntwicklung des Willy Brandt sowie für die Entstehung eigener außenpolitischer, ja sogareuropäischer Konzepte beim späteren Staatsmann nachvollziehen können

This paper aims to research how left anti-systemic groups in the European Union meet the challenges a transnational political system creates for them. System critical movements have existed for a long time, but in times of an increasingly transnational multi-level polity it is important to consider how system criticism changes. In a qualitative study of six left antisystemic groups from Germany and Sweden, this paper seeks to give insights on left anti-system activism and the role of local groups in connection to transnational social movements. Qualitative interviews with group members, a qualitative content analysis and the connection to Social Movements Theories bring forward a hypothesis of how left anti-systemic groups use political theories, position themselves in the process of political change and what influence they can have on transnational social movements. In order to meet the challenges of (1) the difficulties of defining the political system that the groups are active against (the political system in the EU) (2) more complex and abstract issues that are dealt with (3) the fading importance of the role of the state in the process of political change, the groups adapt by using political literature in an open way and focusing on practical activism. Furthermore, the groups increasingly use transnationalism as a conception for their activism and therefore perceive their main tasks in providing infrastructure and continuous local organization to enable mobilization for transnational social movements. The role suggested for local or national anti-systemic groups in transnational social movements is existential, even though the importance of this role is not always reflected upon by the group members.

This thesis examines how the right of free movement of persons is governed through surveillance databases represented as security measures by applying the governmentality perspective. In order to do that, the study focuses on the relationship between freedom of movement, security and surveillance databases in the European Union such as Schengen Information System (SIS), European Dactylographic System (EURODAC) and the Europol Computer System (TECS). The main argument of the thesis is to analyze the role of surveillance databases in controlling the free movements of certain kinds of people that are seen as a "
threat"
to the European internal security.

Over the last years, the growing availability of large datasets and the improvements in the computational speed of computers have further fostered the research in the fields of both macroeconomic modeling and forecasting analysis. A primary focus of these research areas is to improve the models performance by exploiting the informational content of several time series. Increasing the dimension of macro models is indeed crucial for a detailed structural understanding of the economic environment, as well as for an accurate forecasting analysis. As consequence, a new generation of large-scale macro models, based on the micro-foundations of a fully specified dynamic stochastic general equilibrium set-up, has became one of the most flourishing research areas of interest both in central banks and academia. At the same time, there has been a revival of forecasting methods dealing with many predictors, such as the factor models. The central idea of factor models is to exploit co-movements among variables through a parsimonious econometric structure. Few underlying common shocks or factors explain most of the co-variations among variables. The unexplained component of series movements is on the other hand due to pure idiosyncratic dynamics. The generality of their framework allows factor models to be suitable for describing a broad variety of models in a macroeconomic and a financial context. The revival of factor models, over the recent years, comes from important developments achieved by Stock and Watson (2002) and Forni, Hallin, Lippi and Reichlin (2000). These authors find the conditions under which some data averages become collinear to the space spanned by the factors when, the cross section dimension, becomes large. Moreover, their factor specifications allow the idiosyncratic dynamics to be mildly cross-correlated (an effect referred to as the 'approximate factor structure' by Chamberlain and Rothschild, 1983), a situation empirically verified in many applications. These findings have relevant implications. The most important being that the use of a large number of series is no longer representative of a dimensional constraint. On the other hand, it does help to identify the factor space. This new generation of factor models has been applied in several areas of macroeconomics and finance as well as for policy evaluation. It is consequently very likely to become a milestone in the literature of forecasting methods using many predictors. This thesis contributes to the empirical literature on factor models by proposing four original applications.

In the first chapter of this thesis, the generalized dynamic factor model of Forni et. al (2002) is employed to explore the predictive content of the asset returns in forecasting Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation and the growth rate of Industrial Production (IP). The connection between stock markets and economic growth is well known. In the fundamental valuation of equity, the stock price is equal to the discounted future streams of expected dividends. Since the future dividends are related to future growth, a revision of prices, and hence returns, should signal movements in the future growth path. Though other important transmission channels, such as the Tobin's q theory (Tobin, 1969), the wealth effect as well as capital market imperfections, have been widely studied in this literature. I show that an aggregate index, such as the S&P500, could be misleading if used as a proxy for the informative content of the stock market as a whole. Despite the widespread wisdom of considering such index as a leading variable, only part of the assets included in the composition of the index has a leading behaviour with respect to the variables of interest. Its forecasting performance might be poor, leading to sceptical conclusions about the effectiveness of asset prices in forecasting macroeconomic variables. The main idea of the first essay is therefore to analyze the lead-lag structure of the assets composing the S&P500. The classification in leading, lagging and coincident variables is achieved by means of the cross correlation function cleaned of idiosyncratic noise and short run fluctuations. I assume that asset returns follow a factor structure. That is, they are the sum of two parts: a common part driven by few shocks common to all the assets and an idiosyncratic part, which is rather asset specific. The correlation

function, computed on the common part of the series, is not affected by the assets' specific dynamics and should provide information only on the series driven by the same common factors. Once the leading series are identified, they are grouped within the economic sector they belong to. The predictive content that such aggregates have in forecasting IP growth and CPI inflation is then explored and compared with the forecasting power of the S&P500 composite index. The forecasting exercise is addressed in the following way: first, in an autoregressive (AR) model I choose the truncation lag that minimizes the Mean Square Forecast Error (MSFE) in 11 years out of sample simulations for 1, 6 and 12 steps ahead, both for the IP growth rate and the CPI inflation. Second, the S&P500 is added as an explanatory variable to the previous AR specification. I repeat the simulation exercise and find that there are very small improvements of the MSFE statistics. Third, averages of stock return leading series, in the respective sector, are added as additional explanatory variables in the benchmark regression. Remarkable improvements are achieved with respect to the benchmark specification especially for one year horizon forecast. Significant improvements are also achieved for the shorter forecast horizons, when the leading series of the technology and energy sectors are used.

The second chapter of this thesis disentangles the sources of aggregate risk and measures the extent of co-movements in five European stock markets. Based on the static factor model of Stock and Watson (2002), it proposes a new method for measuring the impact of international, national and industry-specific shocks. The process of European economic and monetary integration with the advent of the EMU has been a central issue for investors and policy makers. During these years, the number of studies on the integration and linkages among European stock markets has increased enormously. Given their forward looking nature, stock prices are considered a key variable to use for establishing the developments in the economic and financial markets. Therefore, measuring the extent of co-movements between European stock markets has became, especially over the last years, one of the main concerns both for policy makers, who want to best shape their policy responses, and for investors who need to adapt their hedging strategies to the new political and economic environment. An optimal portfolio allocation strategy is based on a timely identification of the factors affecting asset returns. So far, literature dating back to Solnik (1974) identifies national factors as the main contributors to the co-variations among stock returns, with the industry factors playing a marginal role. The increasing financial and economic integration over the past years, fostered by the decline of trade barriers and a greater policy coordination, should have strongly reduced the importance of national factors and increased the importance of global determinants, such as industry determinants. However, somehow puzzling, recent studies demonstrated that countries sources are still very important and generally more important of the industry ones. This paper tries to cast some light on these conflicting results. The chapter proposes an econometric estimation strategy more flexible and suitable to disentangle and measure the impact of global and country factors. Results point to a declining influence of national determinants and to an increasing influence of the industries ones. The international influences remains the most important driving forces of excess returns. These findings overturn the results in the literature and have important implications for strategic portfolio allocation policies; they need to be revisited and adapted to the changed financial and economic scenario.

The third chapter presents a new stylized fact which can be helpful for discriminating among alternative explanations of the U.S. macroeconomic stability. The main finding is that the fall in time series volatility is associated with a sizable decline, of the order of 30% on average, in the predictive accuracy of several widely used forecasting models, included the factor models proposed by Stock and Watson (2002). This pattern is not limited to the measures of inflation but also extends to several indicators of real economic activity and interest rates. The generalized fall in predictive ability after the mid-1980s is particularly pronounced for forecast horizons beyond one quarter. Furthermore, this empirical regularity is not simply specific to a single method, rather it is a common feature of all models including those used by public and private institutions. In particular, the forecasts for output and inflation of the Fed's Green book and the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) are significantly more accurate than a random walk only before 1985. After this date, in contrast, the hypothesis of equal predictive ability between naive random walk forecasts and the predictions of those institutions is not rejected for all horizons, the only exception being the current quarter. The results of this chapter may also be of interest for the empirical literature on asymmetric information. Romer and Romer (2000), for instance, consider a sample ending in the early 1990s and find that the Fed produced more accurate forecasts of inflation and output compared to several commercial providers. The results imply that the informational advantage of the Fed and those private forecasters is in fact limited to the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. In contrast, during the last two decades no forecasting model is better than "tossing a coin" beyond the first quarter horizon, thereby implying that on average uninformed economic agents can effectively anticipate future macroeconomics developments. On the other hand, econometric models and economists' judgement are quite helpful for the forecasts over the very short horizon, that is relevant for conjunctural analysis. Moreover, the literature on forecasting methods, recently surveyed by Stock and Watson (2005), has devoted a great deal of attention towards identifying the best model for predicting inflation and output. The majority of studies however are based on full-sample periods. The main findings in the chapter reveal that most of the full sample predictability of U.S. macroeconomic series arises from the years before 1985. Long time series appear

to attach a far larger weight on the earlier sub-sample, which is characterized by a larger volatility of inflation and output. Results also suggest that some caution should be used in evaluating the performance of alternative forecasting models on the basis of a pool of different sub-periods as full sample analysis are likely to miss parameter instability.

The fourth chapter performs a detailed forecast comparison between the static factor model of Stock and Watson (2002) (SW) and the dynamic factor model of Forni et. al. (2005) (FHLR). It is not the first work in performing such an evaluation. Boivin and Ng (2005) focus on a very similar problem, while Stock and Watson (2005) compare the performances of a larger class of predictors. The SW and FHLR methods essentially differ in the computation of the forecast of the common component. In particular, they differ in the estimation of the factor space and in the way projections onto this space are performed. In SW, the factors are estimated by static Principal Components (PC) of the sample covariance matrix and the forecast of the common component is simply the projection of the predicted variable on the factors. FHLR propose efficiency improvements in two directions. First, they estimate the common factors based on Generalized Principal Components (GPC) in which observations are weighted according to their signal to noise ratio. Second, they impose the constraints implied by the dynamic factors structure when the variables of interest are projected on the common factors. Specifically, they take into account the leading and lagging relations across series by means of principal components in the frequency domain. This allows for an efficient aggregation of variables that may be out of phase. Whether these efficiency improvements are helpful to forecast in a finite sample is however an empirical question. Literature has not yet reached a consensus. On the one hand, Stock and Watson (2005) show that both methods perform similarly (although they focus on the weighting of the idiosyncratic and not on the dynamic restrictions), while Boivin and Ng (2005) show that SW's method largely outperforms the FHLR's and, in particular, conjecture that the dynamic restrictions implied by the method are harmful for the forecast accuracy of the model. This chapter tries to shed some new light on these conflicting results. It

focuses on the Industrial Production index (IP) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and bases the evaluation on a simulated out-of sample forecasting exercise. The data set, borrowed from Stock and Watson (2002), consists of 146 monthly observations for the US economy. The data spans from 1959 to 1999. In order to isolate and evaluate specific characteristics of the methods, a procedure, where the

two non-parametric approaches are nested in a common framework, is designed. In addition, for both versions of the factor model forecasts, the chapter studies the contribution of the idiosyncratic component to the forecast. Other non-core aspects of the model are also investigated: robustness with respect to the choice of the number of factors and variable transformations. Finally, the chapter performs a sub-sample performances of the factor based forecasts. The purpose of this exercise is to design an experiment for assessing the contribution of the core characteristics of different models to the forecasting performance and discussing auxiliary issues. Hopefully this may also serve as a guide for practitioners in the field. As in Stock and Watson (2005), results show that efficiency improvements due to the weighting of the idiosyncratic components do not lead to significant more accurate forecasts, but, in contrast to Boivin and Ng (2005), it is shown that the dynamic restrictions imposed by the procedure of Forni et al. (2005) are not harmful for predictability. The main conclusion is that the two methods have a similar performance and produce highly collinear forecasts.

Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie
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A l'approche de l'élargissement de l'UE de 2004, les Etats membres de l'Union européenne ont adopté des dispositions transitoires à la libre circulation des travailleurs, à savoir une période dérogatoire de sept ans durant laquelle ils pouvaient continuer à appliquer leur législation relative aux permis de travail. Initialement isolée, l'Allemagne est parvenue en quelques années à imposer sa préférence à ce sujet à l'ensemble de l'Union européenne. Cette thèse fait trois constats. Le premier est que si la libre circulation des travailleurs se situe à l'intersection des politiques d'élargissement, de marché du travail et de politique migratoire, c'est la composante migratoire qui a dominé la prise de décision. Plus précisément, les dispositions transitoires étaient perçues comme un outil de migration sélective afin de choisir les profils jugés comme étant les plus désirables - et ce même si les désirs politiques ne correspondaient pas à la réalité du marché. La seconde est qu'il n'y a eu que très peu d'Européanisation et d'harmonisation dans ce processus de décision, les Etats membres dominant les négociations. Enfin, le troisième constat est que les acteurs politiques ont principalement pris en compte des considérations électorales, et non des considérations économiques, dans l'adoption de ces dispositions transitoires.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
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This thesis discusses concepts of cosmopolitism and peripherality in the Greek and wider European goth scene. The research took place primarily in Greece but extended to Germany, the United Kingdom and online as I followed the movement of Athenian goths who were searching for connectivity, hybridity and their cosmopolitan selves. In living a hybrid cosmopolitan identity, goths regularly challenge national stereotypes and transgress international boundaries. But sometimes the complexities of goth cosmopolitan identity may also contain unpalatable aspects, such as hard-core Greek or German nationalism and views that verge on xenophobia or anarchism that are seemingly at odds with the ‘open' and ‘egalitarian' persona put forward by Athenian goths. It is through performance (particularly dance) that Athenian goths choose to express their beliefs and desires, blending aspects of the contemporary goth scene with twists of ‘traditional' Greek ideas. Often performance, with all its paradoxes and hybrid contradictions, says more than words. Movement is at the centre of goth identity; the movement of ideas on social media, the physical movement of goths to overseas festivals and the exchange of opinions among goths at nightclubs in Athens all contribute to a hybrid cosmopolitan identity of a group of people who reside both on the geographical periphery of Europe and on the periphery of their own society. Goth identity is hybrid and complex with layers of peripherality being channelled toward becoming an ever-developing cosmopolitan subject. This thesis focuses on the core aspects of the goth life-project which aim for individuality, connectivity, movement and inclusivity. Being able to creatively display one's hybrid cosmopolitanism is the very essence of what it is to be goth.

The aim of my thesis is to acquaint the reader with the problematic of free movement of workers, both from the theoretical point of view and from practical point of view based on the European Court of Justice cases. In the theoretical part of the thesis, I focus on the characteristics of internal market and definition of free movement of persons and workers. I mention individual law regulations that significantly influence the problematic of free movement of persons. Further, I describe different exceptions from free movement of workers, mutual recognition of academic qualifications and social security regarding the movement of workers. And at last in my practical part, I analyze individual cases of ECJ which have had the most significant impact on the development of free movement of workers.

Conçu de prime abord pour organiser la redistribution sociale entre les membres sédentaires de la communauté de solidarité étatique, l'État providence est par essence fermé. Les frontières de l'État providence, déterminées en principe nationalement et territorialement, servent à empêcher l'entrée des non-membres et à rendre difficile la sortie des membres. La dynamique de l'intégration négative, associée à la citoyenneté de l'Union, aboutit à mettre en cause les critères de nationalité et de résidence comme conditions d'accès à l'État providence, entrainant par-là le double mouvement de " dénationnalisation " et de " déterritoralisation " de l'État providence. Les considérations solidaristiques et financières qui sous-tendent le fonctionnement de l'État providence exigent toutefois de reconnaître à ce dernier une certaine forme de fermeture essentielle à son maintien. Le critère de " liens réels " est érigé en un critère principal de régulation des rapports entre les citoyens migrants et les États membres à l'égard des droits aux prestations sociales. Ce nouveau critère de rattachement basé sur l'intégration témoigne de l'effort de conciliation entre la logique de fermeture et l'exigence de l'ouverture de l'État providence.

This DPhil thesis analyses the Takeover Bid Directive in the light of EU Law and examines the extent to which this Directive facilitates the exercise of the fundamental freedom of establishment and the free movement of capital in the internal market. Since the Directive is based on the EC Treaty chapter on freedom of establishment (Articles 43 and 44(2)(g) EC Treaty), it should in principle contribute to cross frontier corporate mobility in the internal market through takeover bids; this was the aim of the Commission in its various proposals. Takeover bids and the EC Treaty provisions on freedom of establishment are closely related. The Directive forms part of the EU company law harmonization programme whose weaknesses and limits are also explored. However, the Takeover Bid Directive is an EU company law instrument with strong links to EU capital market law. The initial aims of the EU legislature were to establish an internal market for companies and to achieve market integration in the field of EU company law. However, the Takeover Bid Directive is a compromise and watered down version of a proposal which the Commission envisaged would lead to a more effective pan-European takeover regime than that which actually proved possible. The need for compromise was the result of the very different legal and policy approaches of the Member States in the field of takeover regulation. Some provisions of the Directive are obligatory for all Member States. These provisions include the mandatory bid rule, the squeeze-out right, and the sell-out right. All these obligatory provisions of the Directive are in their present form open to criticism. The two key provisions of the Directive have been made optional for Member States. These are the non-frustration rule, requiring the board to obtain the prior authorization of the general meeting of shareholders before taking any action which could result in the frustration of the bid; and the breakthrough rule, requiring that any restrictions on the transfer of securities or voting rights provided for in the articles of association of the offeree company or in contractual agreements between the offeree company and the holders of its securities or in contractual agreements between holders of the offeree company’s securities shall not apply vis-à-vis the offeror during the time allowed for acceptance of the bid. Nevertheless, Member States, which opt out, are obliged to allow individual companies to opt in. Moreover, a reciprocity rule was also adopted, which allows Member States to permit those companies, which apply these provisions, to opt out again if they are the target of a bidder, which does not itself apply the same takeover provisions. Additionally, the non-frustration and the breakthrough rule are not fully comprehensive and even when a company applies them, it might still be able to evade their application since some corporate and financial structures remain outside the Directive’s scope. Finally, this thesis discusses the extent to which obstacles to cross border takeovers addressed by the Directive, or indeed left intact by the Directive, are to be regarded as restrictions on the right of establishment stricto sensu, or simply as obstacles in practice to making a successful takeover bid. More specifically, it scrutinizes the horizontal direct effect of the EC fundamental freedoms and seeks to analyze the extent to which conduct of the board and articles in the corporate constitution might be said to constitute restrictions on the freedom of establishment and on the free movement of capital.

The present research project aimed to investigate the struggles undocumented Sudanese migrant face to circumvent legal and geographical borders and to gain some form of citizenship. I focused on the kind of journeys, referred to as sombok, their precondition, narration and social practices implemented along the irregular routes from Sudan to the United Kingdom. In doing so, particular interest was paid to the production, circulation and resilience of migratory knowledge roaming in transnational networks and resulting in consequent mobility patterns, tenaciously and ceaselessly reproduced. Indeed, despite the increasing difficulties, due to massive investment in border patrolling and externalisation of controls, it is apparent that this does not deter people from migrating and neither does it prevent arrivals and movements in Europe.

Les entrepreneurs n’ont pas manqué de soulever l’importance et la nécessité d’une structure européenne flexible pour répondre aux besoins des PME. En effet l'introduction d'une société à conception contractuelle dans le droit européen revêt de multiples intérêts. D'une part, elle intègre les PME dans la continuité du processus de construction du marché intérieur. D’autre part, elle offre une liberté d’action appréciée par les entrepreneurs qui évoluent dans un marché fortement concurrentiel. Enfin, le caractère contractuel permet au législateur européen de revenir sur la définition des libertés d'établissement et de circulation des capitaux.Aussi encourageant que soit ce projet, il n'en demeure pas moins source d'interrogations et d'inquiétudes. La liberté contractuelle comporte des risques si elle n'évolue pas dans un cadre juridique adapté et protecteur. Cette thèse a pour objectif d’analyser les effets de la transposition de la liberté contractuelle dans le droit européen des sociétés. Pour comprendre la portée de l’adoption du texte relatif à la SPE, cette thèse tentera de définir la liberté contractuelle au sens communautaire, de souligner ses avantages et d’analyser ses inconvénients
Entrepreneurs consider flexible structures are important to meet European SMES needs. Indeed, the transposition of a contractual company in the European law are very valuable. On the one hand, it includes SMES in the process of construction of internal market. On the other hand, it offers to entrepreneurs a freedom to manage their companies in order to be more competitive. Finally the contractual aspect of the company allows the European parliament to reconsider the definition of freedom of establishment and free movement of capital. As encouraging as this project is, it remains a source of questions and concerns. Contractual freedom could involve risks if it doesn’t evolve in a suitable protective legal framework. This thesis aims to analyze the effects of the transposition of contractual freedom in the European company law. To understand the scope of the adoption of the text relating to the SPE, this thesis will try to define the contractual freedom in EU terms, to emphasize its advantages and disadvantages analyzed