Theses and Dissertations
http://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/1027
2024-03-29T05:59:06ZQUID PRO QUO: HOW POLITICAL CLIENTELISM MODERATES THE EFFECT OF ECONOMIC SHOCKS ON APPROVAL RATINGS
http://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/7247
QUID PRO QUO: HOW POLITICAL CLIENTELISM MODERATES THE EFFECT OF ECONOMIC SHOCKS ON APPROVAL RATINGS
Kurmashev, Magzhan
This Master's Thesis researches the moderating effect of political clientelism on negative economic conditions that affect the approval ratings of incumbent politicians, namely the president or the prime minister. The study examines the extent to which clientelistic linkages between voters (clients) and political figures or parties (patrons) can moderate the relationship between economic indicators and the approval ratings of the incumbents. Using a quantitative methods approach, the research analyses Time-Series Cross-Section data that includes approval ratings of incumbent presidents or governments; key economic indicators, such as inflation, unemployment, national currency depreciation, and the GDP growth rate; the political clientelism index; and control variables of the honeymoon effect (first year in office). The data sample is made up of observations in 14 countries that arrive from different regions of the globe: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. The results are mixed. On the one hand, we see that political clientelism has a significant positive marginal effect on approval ratings. On the other hand, the results indicate that the moderating effect of political clientelism has no significant impact on the link between economic indicators and incumbent approval ratings. The study contributes to the existing literature on political clientelism by emphasising its significance for comprehending the dynamics of political approval ratings in nations with different tiers of democracy and freedoms, as well as economic development. Further studies are needed in this direction in order to develop new perspectives about the relationship between the literature on approval ratings and the literature on political clientelism.
2023-01-01T00:00:00ZMEDIA FRAMING AND THE RISING NATURE OF SUPPORT FOR RIGHT-WING POPULISM: THE CASE OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC
http://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/6908
MEDIA FRAMING AND THE RISING NATURE OF SUPPORT FOR RIGHT-WING POPULISM: THE CASE OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Makhtayeva, Aisulu
The academic literature does not provide a convincing and comprehensive explanation for the impact that media framing has had on the growing support for right-wing populism in the Czech Republic. To fill the gap in the literature, this thesis empirically explores the issues that are framed in the media, which results in the increasing support for right-wing populism, the proxy for which is the votes given to populist parties in the Czech parliamentary elections over the course of the past years. After it was determined that factors such as immigration, crime rates, and unemployment rates are highly associated with the popularity of right-wing populism, content analysis and personal interviews were conducted to understand whether or not the media framing plays a role in the rising support for right-wing populists. In spite of the fact that the rate of immigration in the Czech Republic is significantly lower than in the other countries of the European Union, the findings suggest that media framing has an indicative influence on the outcome of electorate results due to the large pool of newspaper consumers in the Czech Republic.
2023-01-01T00:00:00ZGENDER ORDER AND HEGEMONIC FEMININITY: HOW THE DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER PERPETUATES THE NORMALIZATION OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN KAZAKHSTAN
http://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/6155
GENDER ORDER AND HEGEMONIC FEMININITY: HOW THE DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER PERPETUATES THE NORMALIZATION OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE IN KAZAKHSTAN
Kazhenova, Damira
This study is aimed to explore how gender order becomes hegemonic by enforcing the
standards of hegemonic femininity on women in social media spaces that makes them
question their bodily autonomy and behavior. In particular, the thesis explores how
standards of hegemonic femininity is extensively utilized by the public in order to glorify
national culture and traditions that allows the public to come up with the definition
behind what it means to be a Kazakh woman, thereby, normalizing punishing those
women whose behavior does not align with these standards. By relying on discourse
analysis to analyze the content of the available comments found on Instagram, this study
represents an attempt to research modern Kazakh nationalism from a critical gendered
perspective with a focus on gender-based violence. Thereby, I argue that the diffusion of
gender discourses that takes place online contributes to the construction of hegemonic
standards of femininity that perpetuates the normalization of gender-based violence as
culturally appropriate as well as negative attitudes towards the members of LGBTQ
communities as alien to the national identity.
2022-05-01T00:00:00ZPREDICTING ELECTION RESULTS USING ONLINE SENTIMENTS IN RUSSIA AND THE US
http://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/6154
PREDICTING ELECTION RESULTS USING ONLINE SENTIMENTS IN RUSSIA AND THE US
Aibassova, Aigerim
Social media is one of the most prominent spaces for communication in the 21st century
and as such is deeply intertwined with our political life being both its reflection and influencer.
Due to this phenomenon, there is a rising interest among scholars in using social media to predict
election results with mixed results. This thesis aims to test the connection between political
processes, regime types, and predictive power of social media data by using two countries as
case studies: the United States and Russia. Several tentative results are produced. Firstly, the
predictive power of online opinions is revealed to be higher for the US as compared to Russia –
presumably due to the former’s democratic and the latter’s non-democratic political system.
Secondly, filtering on certain sociodemographic groups can affect the accuracy of predictions.
For instance, while only selecting large city urban populations can increase the errors in
predictions for both countries, removing tweets from election candidates can have an asymmetric
effect in two countries: improving the predictions for Russia, while decreasing their accuracy for
the US. While the results have little claim to generalizability across regime types, they can
provide a starting groundwork for further research on the way different political phenomena and
conditions shape the way election predictions can be improved.
2022-05-01T00:00:00ZRESILIENCE OF THE MASS DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT IN BELARUS
http://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/6152
RESILIENCE OF THE MASS DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT IN BELARUS
Orazbek, Miras
This study explores the peculiarities of the mass democracy movement in Belarus,
particularly domestic and foreign mechanisms that opposition, protesters and other
representatives of the Belarusian democracy movement utilize to endure under the repressive
government of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. I demonstrate that by gradually shifting their
resistance strategies and embracing extensive foreign political-financial support, the
democracy movement in Belarus has been able to withstand substantial domestic pressure and
continue to operate under harsh autocratic settings.
2022-05-01T00:00:00ZPROPAGANDA THROUGH MIMICKING: THE 2016 IRA PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN ON FACEBOOK IN THE U.S.
http://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/5732
PROPAGANDA THROUGH MIMICKING: THE 2016 IRA PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN ON FACEBOOK IN THE U.S.
Mukhambet, Ali
The thesis research analyzes the mimicking in the Russian propaganda campaign on Facebook against the US in 2016. I identify a gap in the literature: the scholars have noted that Russia has mimicked American activists by creating groups on Facebook that wrote about political and social issues but they have not studied the effects and effectiveness of the mimicking. Consequently, the focus of the research is to find the effects of mimicking of the Russian propaganda campaign on Facebook. To analyze mimicking, I used the Facebook dataset shared by the US House of Representatives on the Russian propaganda campaign in 2016 against the US. Through the content and regression analyses, I found the following effects: the propaganda messages with more sophisticated mimicking of the rhetoric of their targeted audience on Facebook have attracted more attention and led to higher engagement rates. The implication of the finding is that such propaganda campaigns may have the capacity to amplify the polarization of the society by providing polarizing content on social media more reach, while its reach might be limited by the mimicking itself. Whether amplification of polarization occurred in actuality and the extent of it requires further research. Other implications of mimicking in foreign political propaganda have also been discussed.
2021-01-01T00:00:00Z