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The European Union's Counter-Terrorism Strategy as part of Education?
Patsikouridi, Maria ; Hardman, Helen (vedoucí práce) ; Aslan, Emil (oponent)
After 2015, the EU Counter-terrorism strategy focused on preventing radicalisation into violent extremism (PVE). In this process, education was given the task to prevent radicalisation and strengthen resilience. The rapid growth of PVE programmes in primary schools makes it imperative to issue educational perspectives on the radicalisation discourse. The present case study analyses and defines how and to what extent PVE can be incorporated in primary school. Documentary analysis of the RAN Collection of Approaches and Practices (2019) and semi-structured interviews with the RAN Youth and Education working group practitioners got applied to collect the data. The qualitative content analysis of the data showed that PVE can be incorporated into primary school by using specific strategies and under certain conditions. The research concludes that the educational reality calls on using educational theories to examine the matter and create a joint framework under which PVE practices and programmes will function. Furthermore, approaching primary prevention as part of the educational system's bone structure and not as an additional programme to be implemented for a time period; would set up the idea of a "Resilient Union". Key-words: primary prevention, radicalisation, extremism, violence, education,...
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Unmasking the Gendered Power Play through Feminist Foreign Policy - Why It Is Breaking Boundaries, But Not Chains. A Comprehensive Analysis of Sweden's Feminist Foreign Policy through its Arms Exports and Development Aid
den Hartog, Stella Caroline ; Hardman, Helen (vedoucí práce) ; Casaglia, Anna (oponent)
Unmasking the Gendered Power Play in Feminist Foreign Policy - Why It Is Breaking Boundaries, But Not Chains? A Comprehensive Analysis of Sweden's Feminist Foreign Policy through its Arms Exports Industry July 2023 By Stella Caroline den Hartog Glasgow: 2711866D Dublin: Charles: 67499995 Presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of International Master in Security, Intelligence and Strategic Studies (IMSISS) Word Count: 22,385 Supervisor: Helen Hardman Date of Submission: July 26th, 2023 Abstract The focus of this research is in the area of feminist foreign policy and arms exports. The purpose of this research was to outline objectives driving feminist foreign policy in light of its arms sector identifying hurdles to successful delivery of the former. The research methods used include qualitative data analysis of the empirical findings of Sweden's feminist foreign policy, and quantitative data analysis of the democratic status of Pakistan, its gender gap index, and gender-based violence rates. The findings from this research provide evidence that Sweden does not align with its feminist foreign policy objectives and goals in the arms exporting sector, showing poor adherence to democratic status of recipient states, and the risk of illicit arms trade and proliferation linked to...
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The role of Internet Service Providers in protecting digital rights
Fernandez Nieto, Berenice ; Erkomaishvili, David (vedoucí práce) ; Hardman, Helen (oponent)
This dissertation is motivated by the need to comprehend the role of private players in regulating internet activity, how it alters states' security activities, and impacts human rights. Particularly, this research focuses on Internet Service Providers' role in preserving digital rights, with the Organisation of American States and the European Union serving as cases of study. The comparative analysis examines the liability regimes developed in both regions and how they interact with human rights legislation, copyright protection and national security obligations. The aim is to explore the legal burden of ISPs in the digital sphere and comprehend how their actions impact citizens' freedoms. The findings provide an overview of the condition of internet governance in the Americas and Europe, the priorities that shaped the current legislation and the most pressing challenges ahead. Keywords Internet Service Providers, Digital Rights, Liability Regime, digital Governance, Data Protection, Net Neutrality
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Increasing fiscal integration in the EU and its potential effects on Austrian economic security
Hatch, Luke ; Hardman, Helen (vedoucí práce) ; Fracasso, Andrea (oponent)
Increasing fiscal integration in the EU and its potential effects on Austrian economic security Abstract The objectives of this dissertation are threefold. Firstly, it aims to understand what the term "economic security" means to Austrian policymakers. Secondly, it aimed to discern Austrian motivations for their "frugal" approach to EU debt mutualisation. Thirdly, it focuses on grasping whether a fear of economic insecurity was seen as a credible motivation for Austrian attitudes in the EU debt mutualisation field. Finally, it aims to ascertain whether policymakers and experts do, in fact, consider debt mutualisation to be a threat to Austrian economic security. The methodologies used in this research project were semi-structured elite interviews and content analysis. The four interviewees were either Austrian policymakers or experts in the realm of Austria's economic relationship with Europe. They were asked to give opinions on their interpretations of economic security, their take on the Frugal Four, and their views on debt mutualisation as a threat to Austrian national security. These interviews were supplemented by general documentary research but also by content analyses of the Stenographisches Protokoll, the Austrian parliamentary record, which were used to understand the use of the German equivalent...
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Examining the Internet Research Agency's Exploitation of Cognitive Biases Through its Disinformation Campaign Targeted at the US 2016 Presidential Election
Cannon, Casey ; Tesař, Jakub (vedoucí práce) ; Hardman, Helen (oponent) ; Biagini, Erika (oponent)
Numerous studies have been dedicated to the Kremlin-affiliated Internet Research Agency's (IRA) online disinformation effort dedicated at the US 2016 Presidential election. Research has confirmed that the effort involved a coordinated effort to influence the voting behaviour and sow discord amongst US citizens across social media networks. This paper differed from previous research in that it analysed the literature to evaluate if the IRA employed tactics designed to exploit specific cognitive processes including the vividness bias, availability heuristic, and confirmation bias. This research performs unique analysis for each bias by examining qualitatively how confirmation bias may have been exploited based on the IRA's network infiltration, performing quantitative analysis of the IRA tweet volume relative to a control dataset of humans and automated bot accounts during the pre-election period, and the vividness bias by employing a Sentiment Analysis to assess positive and negative sentiment in IRA tweets. Each bias is then evaluated in the context of Russian reflexive control doctrine and the greater IRA strategy. This paper finds that the IRA employed a savvy understanding of how cognition and social media network infrastructure influenced US users' behaviour and leveraged that knowledge to...
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From Indigenous Peace to Sustainable Peace: The Role of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian Environmental Defenders in Building an Environmentally Sustainable Peace in Colombia (2016-2020)
Garrido, Mariana Antunes ; Gaynor, Niamh (vedoucí práce) ; Hardman, Helen (oponent) ; Ludvík, Jan (oponent)
The issue of land distribution and of managing natural resources has always been a source of social-environmental disputes in Latin America and in Colombia. It was partly those disputes, when combined with unfathomable inequalities, that originated the armed conflict between the FARC and the Colombian Government - a conflict that only saw its official end in 2016. Even though the Peace Agreement was the fruit of a participatory? process which rendered the land issue as the top-one priority and even included an Ethnic Chapter, the end of the armed conflict did not exactly mean the start of peace for ethnic communities. Using non-violent ancestral techniques of mobilization, resistance and negotiation (such as mingas; protests; self-defence groups; making formal judicial complaints etc), environmental defenders have been struggling to advance what they call 'integral peace' - an holistic concept in which peace is only achieved and sustainable if human rights and social justice for ethnic communities are inseparable from the protection of the Madre Tierra. Drawing from concepts such as direct, structural and cultural violence, from 'local turn' theorisations of 'indigenous peace' and 'everyday peace' and the concept of 'emancipation', this research project analyses what has been the role of afro and...
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An analysis of EU strategic culture and the role of the autonomous projection of hard power therein
Revie, Alasdair ; Hynek, Nikola (vedoucí práce) ; Hardman, Helen (oponent)
This project attempts to analyse the role of the autonomous projection of hard power as tool of EU strategic culture through investigation into three case studies. These case studies constitute several EU military operations including: EUFOR BiH (Operation Althea), EUFOR DRC (Operation Artemis) and a joint investigation into EUNAVFOR MED (Operation Sophia) and EUNAVFOR MED (Operation Irini). The case selection of these operations is justified through the application of strategic culture theory as well as discourse and documentary analysis of the literature surrounding each of these missions. Further documentary, discourse and empirical analyses are undertaken during the case studies, as well as contextual factors being taken into consideration, in order to come to conclusions regarding the consequences of the strategic actions taken by the EU and other allied or aligned actors in each case upon the strategic culture of the EU. The extent of the relative autonomy ODF the actions of the EU from other aligned actors is also investigated in order to make determinations about the extent to which the EU was fully strategically responsible for a given military operation and, therefore, how consequential the outcomes of a given mission are upon the strategic culture of the EU. The core actors which were...
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Acquiescence or repression? French citizens and the absence of protest against arms exports to authoritarian states
Leclercq, Valentin ; Hardman, Helen (vedoucí práce) ; Střítecký, Vít (oponent)
This dissertation explores the individual and structural rationales involved in the production of citizen non-participation in protest against unethical weapons exports. Arms exports control has traditionally been viewed in the literature as a product of states and state-centred international bodies, but it is increasingly recognised that in democracies citizens have a major role to play in terms of democratic constraint. However, in the case of France, evidence shows that hardly any citizens seek to constrain the government and pressure it to change its arms export policy, despite the fact that most of its clients are human rights violators. This raises a question that this dissertation aims to answer: Why do French citizens not mobilise and protest against their country's arms exports to countries that violate human rights? A survey experiment was conducted with French citizens to probe and discover the different causal mechanisms explaining non-participation. It was found that insufficient information, active shunning of participation and emotional responses are the most prevalent causes of non-participation among French citizens. Therefore, this dissertation highlights the need for a holistic approach to the study of non-participation, and aims to provide a constructive basis for practitioners...
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Securitizing the viral "infodemic": EU's reception of Chinese and Russian disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic
Chumenko, Viktoriia ; Hardman, Helen (vedoucí práce) ; Ludvík, Jan (oponent)
Abstract. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus put democratic process, and security architecture across the globe in jeopardy. The global health crisis galvanised the proliferation of pandemic-related disinformation and other malign influence operations, and this phenomenon gave birth to a new buzzword, known as "infodemic". The "infodemic" provided hostile countries with a possibility to launch disinformation campaigns and other malign communication efforts, which in most cases were attributed to external state actors, such as China and Russia. Both actors aimed to weaken the legitimacy of European institutions, and undermine its democratic process. The "infodemic", thus, posed a threat to the EU's security and became a watershed moment in the disinformation discourse for the EU. In the aftermath, this mounting threat of disinformation was instantly acknowledged by EU representatives and institutions in their numerous official statements and policy documents. This dissertation examines the EU's approach towards Chinese and Russian disinformation campaigns through the lenses of securitisation theory and evaluates the success of this process. The findings of the evaluation showcased that neither Russian nor Chinese disinformation was successfully securitised by the EU. It also argues that the EU has...
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Assessing coercion in liberal peacebuilding: The EU peacebuilding attempts in Palestine
van Heeswijk, Emma ; Biagini, Erika (vedoucí práce) ; Hardman, Helen (oponent)
2 Abstract Thi di er a ion e plore he e of coercion in he EU liberal peaceb ilding frame ork in Palestine. Palestine has a long- anding hi or of foreign ac or in ol emen . Since he 1993 O lo Accord , he EU peaceb ilding role a one of Pale ine main financial donors has increased. There is scholarly disagreement and a lack of understanding on the role of coercion in peacebuilding practices. While scholars argue that coercion is a core element for human organisations, others do not recognise the negative impact of coercion in peacebuilding when this does not entail the use of force. Furthermore, the peacebuilding scholarship offers little to no conceptualisation of coercion. Therefore, this dissertation explores how coercion manifests in peacebuilding practices, looking at the case of the EU liberal peacebuilding activities in Palestine. In doing so, the research emphasises on how local Palestinian recipients perceive coercion. The current liberal approach of the EU is built upon the economic dependency of Palestinians, which essentially constitutes a coercive structure. The asymmetric power relations between different actors in the region allows space for the contestation of coercion. This dissertation argues that coercion in this context goes beyond its traditional understanding, and therefore requires...
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