Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political apathy'

Ma la'asot? 'What can we do?' Spoken with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, this sentiment often brings to a close the tense pause which follows discussions of ha sichsuch, 'the quarrel', in Israel- Palestine. As expressed by Leftist Jewish Israelis, the phrase ma la'asot becomes a way of conveying political emotions of despair, helplessness and disappointment at the same time as it presents a practical question of power. Faced with the seeming intractability of conflict, the interminability of a stalled peace process and increasing social and political conservatism, those Jewish Israelis opposed to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories find themselves at loose ends: what to do indeed? While an extensive body of research critically engages with 'the Israeli-Palestinian conflict' through lenses including history, political economy and activism, this thesis shifts focus to the production of stasis. In considering how things stay the same, we might better understand the roots and routes of how they may become different. Drawing upon one year of ethnographic research with Jewish Israelis living in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, this thesis explores the processes, practices and beliefs which sustain normalcy in conditions of conflict. Central to this investigation is gender - as an aspect of subjectivity, relation of power and ordering principle of state and society, gender is integral to the conduct of everyday life and the maintenance of political realities. Thus, this thesis asks what a gender analysis of Jewish Israeli society might tell us about the trajectory of 'Israel-Palestine', what the textures of normalcy, apathy and stasis mean for our visions of the future. Moving through degrees of division and entanglement, modes of avoidance and activism, sites of investment and withdrawal, and instantiations of normalcy and rupture, this thesis foregrounds the gendered subjectivities and sociality central to the production and maintenance of power in Israel-Palestine. By attempting to unpick to relationship between gender and political stasis, this thesis ulti

Conventional wisdom holds that today’s young people, often known as ‘the Millennials’, are a politically alienated generation. Their hostility towards political parties, association with protest movements, and low electoral turnout are all said to indicate their alienation from the processes and institutions of Western democracy. This conventional wisdom stands, however, on shaky ground. Previous research has given too little attention to the definition and measurement of political alienation, and has barely explored its causal relationship with political participation. The use of methods capable of exploring the generational distinctiveness of the Millennials has been limited, as have efforts to outline why the Millennials should be conceptualised as a distinct political generation in the first place, and what is gained from doing so. Focussing on the case of Britain, this study explores the extent to which the Millennials are a distinct political generation in terms of political participation, political apathy, and political alienation, and considers how their conceptualisation as a distinct generation improves our understanding of their political characteristics. Furthermore, it tests the theory that their alienation from, rather than their apathy towards, formal politics can explain their distinct political behaviour. Through critiquing and developing conceptualisations of the Millennials as a political generation, and of political apathy, alienation and participation, this thesis challenges the conventional wisdom. The Millennials are a distinct generation in terms of their political participation, apathy and alienation – but they are distinct for their lack of participation, their unusually high levels of apathy towards formal politics, and their unusually low levels ofalienation from it. The Millennials have the potential to be the most politically apathetic, and least politically alienated, generation to have entered the British electorate since World War Two. In addition, this research also shows that while generational differences are significant and often substantial, they make only a limited contribution to explaining variation in political apathy, alienation and participation. This research argues, therefore, that future studies into and policy responses to the political behaviour of young people must recognise their distinct levels of political apathy. At the same time, however, the focus on political generations should not be so intense as to obscure the role of more influential causes of differences in political participation.

The primary motivation for this research was to examine political apathy amongst students at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The secondary motivation was to question whether youth political apathy threatens the consolidation of democracy. More specifically, the purpose of the study was to critically analyze contemporary literature on the politics of young people in post apartheid South Africa, in order to identify its shortcomings and give an in-depth explanation for youth political apathy, and how it impacts democracy. The writer has employed a qualitative method. Four focus groups were arranged by the researcher at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. All participants of the study were Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) undergraduate and postgraduate black students aged 21-35. The sample of this study included fifty participants. Thus the researcher has utilized a purposive sampling technique. Participants were encouraged by the researcher to have maximum participation in the focus group deliberations. The researcher also made use of elite interviews in the study. The findings of this study suggest that political apathy amongst students at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University does exist. Most of the participants in the focus groups indicated that young people in post-apartheid South Africa have no interest in politics.

Political disillusionment is widespread in contemporary Japanese society, despite people’s struggles in the recession. Our social relationships become entangled, and we can no longer clearly identify our interest in politics. The search for the outside of stagnant reality sometimes leads marginalised young people to a disastrous imaginary for social change, such as war and death. The imaginary of disaster was actualised in March 2011. The huge earthquake and tsunami caused the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which triggered the largest wave of activism since the 1960s. Based on the author’s fieldwork on the post-Fukushima anti-nuclear movements in Tokyo, this thesis investigates how the disaster impacted people’s sense of agency and ethics, and ultimately explores the new political imaginary in postmodernity. The disaster revealed the interconnected nature of contemporary society. The thesis argues that their regret about their past indifference to politics motivated the protesters into social commitment without any totalising ideology or predetermined collective identity. They also found an ambiguity of the self, which is insufficient to know what should be done. Hence, they mobilise their bodies on to the streets, encountering others, and forcing themselves to feel and think. This is an ethical attitude, yet it simultaneously stems from the desire of each individual to make a difference to the self and society. The thesis concludes that the post-Fukushima anti-nuclear movements signify a new way of doing politics as endless experiments by collectively responding to an unexpected force from an outside in a creative way.

The study adopts Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory as the framework to test antecedents and consequences in using fanqiang (bypassing Internet censorship) as an alternative medium along with accessible Internet, TV, newspaper and radio as mainstream media in a Chinese context. By online between-group experimentation (N = 132 in the experimental group, N = 127 in the control group), the study shows that curiosity about forbidden political content and political apathy predict fanqiang and most accessible media use tendencies. Moderation effects exist between curiosity and self-efficacy in predicting fanqiang tendencies. Disappointment as an emotional effect is directly related to curiosity and political apathy, where the mediation effects of media use tendencies are not salient. Explicit Internet censorship increases curiosity about forbidden political content and decreases the dimension of lack of interest in political apathy. However, it does not change accessible media use tendencies and disappointment levels. Still, participants show fewer of fanqiang tendencies than with accessible media, except radio. The results highlight the cognitive roots of motivations and emotional constructs as a part of gratification in U&G research, that self-efficacy as a necessary requirement for curiosity to drive media use, and that information attributes can change motivations. We urge future scholars to build broader explications of political apathy when applied to different societies, to try diverse methods like experimentation in U&G research, and to adopt a sociopsychological approach when studying the influences and effectiveness of Internet censorship.

This dissertation deals with the nature of the black middle-class assimilation in the South African suburban space, a space that was the sole preserve of the white middle-class during apartheid. It explores the relationship between these races as they come to meet in this space and what new identities are being formed. It also explores the relationship between both the black and white suburbanites and the urban poor who stay in an adjacent area to the suburb. The study uses the Beacon Bay area, which is constituted by one of East London’s most affluent suburbs and a poor township, Nompumelelo, to show how the emergent black middle-class has managed to enter this space in the post-apartheid era. Previous studies by Richard Ballard (2004) and Grant Saff (2001) have shown how the white middle-class has always been against any form of race or class mixing. Within the suburb, the new black suburbanites in Beacon Bay appear to have been welcomed but with conditions by their fellow white counterparts. The relationship between these two races does not stretch beyond meet and greets and it is only in the second generation black middle-class that you find better and non-superficial relations with fellow white suburbanites. In the older generation, the generation that experienced apartheid, the relationship between these two races has been that of tolerance and serious escape of contact unless when necessary. The children of both white and black families, though, have a far better relationship in school and in sport than their parents. This has created another area of contact for both these races and it bears potential for meaningful integration in the suburban space. Externally as it relates to relations between the black middle-class and the urban poor, the findings show that these new black suburbanites express a similar discomfort as the white suburbanites about the urban poor’s presence in the area. This shows that the evolution of the Beacon Bay suburb, with its deep-rooted discourse of white middle-class exclusivity, has not been entirely about hatred of the urban poor necessarily but about an identity ascription of what it means to live in a suburb. Despite these realities traditional ceremonies organised by the black middle-class in the suburbs and the church appear to be playing a role in creating relations between these suburbanites and the Nompumelelo residents. This is why we have decided to use the conceptualisation of the 18th century frontier zone as the borders of segregation within the suburb and between the suburban residents and those of the township can be crossed and re-crossed.

This thesis aims to explore the tool of illustrative storytelling to challenge governmental restrictions faced by refugee narratives in Sweden. This exploration will be done through the study of stereotypes that stigmatise the refugee’s identity. The figure of the refugee is often shaped by the visual representation one consumes via mass media and the words one hears in political debates and social discourse. Refugees are often portrayed as immigrants and nothing but immigrants, faceless victims on news, and often de-named suffering people drowning in some ocean. This portrayal makes the humanity of the refugee invisible. A human who has a face, a name, a past, a story beyond his/her refugee story, and most importantly an identity and rights.   I have always witnessed the portrayal of refugees – and myself as one of them- in the media as an act of dehumanization, a misuse of terminology describing me and my situation in political and social discourse, and the effects of these factors on refugees. I have always struggled with the entitlement this invisibility and misrepresentation gives to people. I sense this every time people talk to me, talk about me, and/or talk on my behalf. This misrepresentation always portrayed me as a ‘’problem’’. The refugee has always been a crisis, ‘’A global refugee crisis’’, ‘’An integration crisis’’, and a ‘’European migrant crisis’’. This use of terminology results in a lot of feelings that become politicised and socialised such as fear, apathy, empathy and sometimes hate.   This study will present an exploration of such feelings and their significance to the refugee situation. I will present a critical analysis on the representation of the refugee through a research on Swedish media, political discourse, and the design executed by the Migration Board’s office in Stockholm. The research will be supported by a visual outcome in the form of a graphic novel that narrates two parallel stories. One story is my own experience as an asylum seeker, and the other is a narration of the overall refugee situation in Sweden. The two stories will be treated on two different levels, a personal one and a journalistic one. Illustration as a tool here serves an aim beyond its practical aspect of depicting a narration. It is a resistance against the restrictions of filming, recording, and photographing whatever happens inside the Migration Board’s offices in Sweden. It is a significant tool that educates, interprets, and re-contextualises the right of refugees to tell their own stories as well as document and expose a history told by our oppressors. Illustration here serves an aim of narrating a story that is not institutionalised but provides the reader with cultural understanding and access to a world only the refugee can depict.

With the encroachment of the United States military onto Apache lands many Apache men joined the military due to intolerable reservation conditions and the unique economic opportunity of enlisting as scouts for the military. This thesis attempts to better understand the relationships among military personnel, Apache scouts, and nonmilitary Apache people. By examining the material remains of a scout camp located on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation (FAIR), and integrating these findings with oral history and information collected from White Mountain Apache consultants, a better understanding of historical Western Apache life can be delineated. This thesis examines these lifeways and interactions by applying a theoretical framework adopted from Steven Silliman's practical politics, Richard White's concept of the middle ground, and Western Apache landscape knowledge and stories.

In September 2002 citizenship education became a compulsory element of the secondary school curriculum in England. This policy development launches new interest in the spatial politics of childhood and youth. With increased focus on teenage apathy and declining civic engagement, citizenship education centres upon creating future responsible citizens. Using questionnaire surveys, group discussions, photography, diary completion, as well as more innovative techniques such as a teenage-centred radio phone-in discussion and web-based media, this thesis focuses on a case study of 600 teenagers, aged thirteen to sixteen, living in a variety of rural communities in an area of Southern England. Within many representations of rurality, teenagers are situated between a 'natural, innocent childhood' in idyllic, close-knit communities and threatening and 'out-of place' youths. Such representations foster complex experiences of citizenship. This study, therefore, sets about examining themes of socio-spatial exclusion and political engagement. For some, the deficit of meaningful spaces of citizenship results in frustrated relations with key decision-makers. Others are engaged in their own practices of citizenship, devising creative ways in which to carve out and reconstruct everyday spaces and identities. Contributing to new geographical knowledge(s), this thesis concludes by calling for schools and (rural) communities to support and respect teenagers' own interests, needs, aspirations and current acts of citizenship in their own diverse spaces. Furthermore, it is argued that teenagers, as 'citizen s-i n-th e-p resent' should be provided with the opportunity to engage meaningfully with decision-makers as an integral facet of the political mainstream.

Föreliggande uppsats kartlägger det politiska intressets och den politiska apatins utveckling i Sverige under 1900-talets senare hälft. Det undersöks också hur antalet ”nya”, så kallade icke traditionella partier med mandat i kommunfullmäktige, förändrats under samma tidsperiod. Genom att förankra studiet av det politiska intresset i en explicit teoretisk grund (ett av uppsatsens syften), som i stor utsträckning förbisetts i tidigare undersökningar, härleddes hypotesen att det politiska intresset torde ha ökat parallellt med ökningen av antalet ”nya” partier i kommunfullmäktige, men likaså med minskningen av etablerade partiers medlemmar och en stigande politikermisstro. Underförstått i detta antagande ligger att begreppet politiskt intresse inte låter sig reduceras till ett intresse för etablerade politiska institutioner – en tes som genomgående drivs i uppsatsen. Hopfogandet av en teoretisk grundval för det politiska intressebegreppet innebar också att betydligt fler mått på politiskt intresse och politisk apati, än de i föregående studier hittills få använda mått, kunde härledas i denna undersökning – medförande en förbättrad reliabilitet. Rådata inhämtades från de svenska valundersökningarna. Resultatet bekräftar det antagna sambandet mellan å ena sidan ökad partitillförsel och å andra sidan ökat politiskt intresse och sjunkande apati. Resultatet visar även att den politiska apatin är avsevärt mycket lägre än vad som påvisats i andra undersökningar, och att apatin i stort sätt sjunkit konstant sedan 1960-talet. Dock kan en ökning av den politiska apatin urskiljas i slutet av 1990-talet. Avslutningsvis diskuteras det politiska intressets väsen. Det görs gällande, till skillnad från den gängse uppfattningen, att en sjunkande politisk apati och ett stigande politiskt intresse har sin förklaring i en utbredning av särintressen, knapphet, mångfald, specialisering, värderelativism och i avsaknaden av en gemensam politisk ”myt” i moderna västerländska samhällen. Den motsatta förklaringen framförs emellertid ofta, nämligen att särintressen får medborgarna att tappa intresset för politik – den gemensamma angelägenheten – och apatiskt vända den ryggen. Men denna förklaring och definition av det politiska intressebegreppet, som betraktar särintressen som ”opolitiska” intressen och fråntar dem en roll som politiska drivkrafter, riskerar att göra etablerade politiska institutioner till självändamål. Därmed kontrasterar förklaringen mer eller mindre den representativa demokratins grundtanke: att politik skall spegla samhället och att politik är ett medel. För att undvika att göra redan institutionaliserad politik till aristoteliska självändamål, avrundas uppsatsen med ett förtydligande och en återformulering av en nygammal, liberalistisk politisk intresseontologi.

The presented paper maps out the development of political interest and political apathy in Sweden in the latter part of the 20th century. Also, it is investigated how the number of “new” – non traditional – parties with seats in the municipality, has changed during the refered period of time. By anchoring the research of political interest in a explicit theoretical foundation (one of the papers purpuses), wich highly has been disregarded in earlier research, it was hypothesized that the political interest has increased parallelly with an increasing number of “new” parties in the municipality, but also with an decreasing number of members in established parties and a increased general political distrust. Implicit, this hypothesis claims that the concpetion of political interest not can be reduced to mean the same as an interest in established political institutions – a thesis that is pinpointed throughout the paper. The forward-bringing of a theoretical foundation of the concpetion of political interest, also implied that significantly more measurements of the concept, than is used in other studies, could be deduced within the framwork of this study – improving reliability. Empirical data was mainly collected from the Swedish election studies. The results confirm the hypothesized correlation between increased political interest, decreased political apathy and a growing number of new parties at the local level. As well, it is showed that the political apathy is considerably lower than it has been claimed in other inquiries, and that the apathy almost constantly has decreased since the 1960th. Although, a small increase in the political apathy seems to arise in the late 1990th. Finally, the ontology of the political interest is discussed. It is argued, unlike the general understanding of politics, that the decrease in poltical apathy and the increase in political interest have its explanation in a spreading and prevalence of “special interests”, scarcity, manifoldness, specialization, and value-relativism, and in a loss of a common political “myth” in modern western societies. Although, the opposite explanation is often put forward, namely that “special interests” makes citizens losing interest in political issues – common concerns – and apathical turning its back. But, this explanation and definition of the concept of political interest, that sees special interests as “unpolitical” interests with limited political significance, risks doing established political institutions to ends in themselves. Thererfore, the explanation more or less contrasts the main idea of representative democracy, that is: politics is aimed at mirroring and reflecting society, and politic is a “mean”. In order to avoid doing established political instituions to Aristotelian ends in themselves, the paper is finally reformulating and clarifyinging a blend of new and old liberalistic ontology of political interest.

The dissertation deals with the roots of civic apathy in local government, and the main emphasis is to establish the root cause/s of civic apathy. The hypothesis: 'civic apathy is a phenomenon intensified by ignorance and a feeling of powerlessness and frustration on the electorate' is tested in this study. To examine further specific aspects of civic apathy, including establishing the cause/s and effects of apathy, the author conducted a quantitative research in the Northern Metropolitan Area m Johannesburg, using questionnaires and literature study as the research method. The hypothesis advanced in the dissertation has been validated insofar as it has been argued and demonstrated that indeed people can feel powerless and frustrated if they are deliberately being excluded from, or denied the opportunity to participate actively in their local government activities. The main finding is that civic apathy is intensified by ignorance. However, the most important finding is that there ts a causal relationship between powerlessness, frustration and apathy.
Public Administration and Management
M. Admin. (Public Administration)