The refugee crisis in 2015 challenged Sweden’s asylum policy. The high number of refugees put pressure on the Migration Agency to register all asylum applica-tions and for municipalities to provide them with ontological security in terms of housing, education, and healthcare. The discourse in parliamentary debates and newspaper articles was on internal security, the ability to provide housing, edu

The sexual assaults reported on New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne and the reactions towards it have changed political and public opinion on the issues of migration, gender equality, and sexual violence in Germany. Based on theories from postcolonial studies, feminist studies, security studies, approaches on collective trauma, and emotion studies this thesis analyzes ‘Cologne’ as a trauma which has en

The project primarily discusses the development of religious nationalism in India in the context of 1947 partition and attempts to open up space for future research on ontological security studies within a gendered framework, beyond the limits of disciplinary IR debate. It further reflects on the possibilities of applying security studies in conceptualizing collective identity within the domain of

Since 2014, the Baltic Sea Region has experienced a sharp deterioration with regard to the security relations present within it. In reaction to a security environment increasingly characterised by military unpredictability the orientation of Swedish defence and security policy in the last decade has seen the country going from a de- to a re-militarisation. On the assumption that no nation’s securi

Anti-genderism and anti- “gender ideology” discourses have been taken place in various parts around the world including Latin America and Europe. Political parties and social and religious movements have been mobilising against “gender ideology” in elections and protests defending the traditional family model. This thesis investigates such discourses from an ontological (in)security lenses by cond

The purpose of this study was to contribute to increased awareness and understanding of how actors collaborate to solve complex societal problems. The study also intends to contribute to increased knowledge of the relevance of theory network governance in describing collaborative processes. A third purpose was to study if Forward Malmö has the potential to contribute to the work on social sustaina

The aim of this study is to gain an understanding of the potential relationship between populism and a population’s search for security and belonging. Furthermore, how this is expressed through the rhetoric and policies of a country’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary, this is examined through conducting a qualitative content analysis. Here I use newspaper article

Within Peace Research, there is a long tradition of studying the creations and conditions of peace. Within this, Hybrid Peace Theory has constituted a more critical strand, emphasising the importance of the interactions between international and local actors. This thesis has aimed to contribute to critical peace research by arguing for the importance of including a gender perspective on the Hybrid

This research addresses the role and the power that the media have in framing information about terrorism and also the importance of the media in a well functioning democracy. In order to do so, a case study of the Terrorist Organization November 17 (or 17N) in Greece is presented, using theories related to terrorism, media and political influence in order to better understand the way that the med

Social media have been around for over a decade and many institutions have incorporated them into their communication strategies for some time now. However, despite numerous studies on social media in the US universities, there is a wide knowledge gap regarding the use of these communication platforms in the European higher education sphere, with only a handful of studies in the UK and Netherlands

This research addresses the role that the media have in guiding public perceptions about social movements and also the importance of the media in a well functioning democracy. In order to do so, a case study of the Indignant Citizens movement of Greece is presented, using theories related to participation, including voice and deliberative democracy. Furthermore, theories regarding the Europeanizat

In carrying out foreign policy in the 21st century, it is indispensable for a global force such as the United States to focus on decisions made by the civil society. Particularly, by implementing foreign policy that balances between hard power and soft power diplomacy, the practices of the new public diplomacy enable nation-states to interact with the public culturally and personally by encouragin

In the midst of a global shift in world politics induced by the rise of emerging powers, the outdated and unequal international financial institutions (IFIs) that were set up after World War II are increasingly being challenged and scrutinized. International actors can use IFIs in numerous ways to enhance their position in the world system. For instance, they can be used as a vehicle to launder st

This thesis investigates the Finnish government’s and its agents’ discursive justifications for the recently proposed civil and military intelligence legislation. In order to analyse the Finnish governmental agents’ discursive practices, this thesis engages with two additional questions; how are threats to Finnish security constructed in media, and how is the concept of exceptionalism constructed

In today’s post-industrial cities, how urban citizenship is defined and performed have been ambiguously positioned in their relationship with the urban societal space. While the cities become more commodified and privatized with the inter-urban competition, the concept of citizenship is put into a tentative position between being participatory political subjects and passive consumers. Sexuality, i

This thesis investigates the relationship between Chinese aid and public expenditure in human development sectors in African nations. This is achieved through analysing the change of public expenditure in the education and health sectors of the top two African recipients of Chinese ODA – Ethiopia and Cote d’Ivoire, with an extended analysis to an additional five nations. Through a comparative anal

Research Aim and Questions: The research aims at addressing the question of dialectics between formal political culture and civic culture through internet as a new media with a concentration on the US government’s war discourse and the US anti-war activism. The main research question is: what are the dialectics between the US anti-war activism and the US state from February 2009 (Barack Obama’s in

Hong Kong used to enjoy high degree of press freedom during the period under the British colonial control, however, since the handover to China in 1997, the media self-censorship is becoming explicit. Attributed by the political and economic influences from China, Hong Kong media become more reserved in reporting Chinese sensitive issue, the objectivity and impartiality is threatened. This paper i

After the major populist events such as Trump and Brexit, the media politicians turned their attention to the socio-economic and political division between big cities and small countryside communities. Rural areas where right-wing populist parties have found a large part of their support have besome “left-behind places", described as forgotten and misunderstood. The question of why these popu