Alternative Forms of Resistance: Afghan Women Negotiating for Change

In this paper we examine how Afghan women resist, strategize and negotiate family and societal constraints to take advantage of the expanding education and employment opportunities in the post-Taliban era. We focus on how these women exercise agency and what resources they mobilize to maximize their opportunities in the face of potential constraints. We argue that to understand women’s agency and changing gendered power relations in the family, it is crucial to examine every day individual behaviors that deviate from prescribed dominant gender behavior and infuse altered meanings to dominant gendering discourses. Our research highlights that gendered power is partial, interrupted by situated emotions and relationships. Afghan women employ a range of resistance methods to overcome constraints placed in their way, and we discuss them through three thematic frameworks of resistance in acts of submission, sacrifice and situated agreement, resistance in acts of open defiance, and resistance in acts of negotiation. The analyses is based on in-depth interviews with 64 women from 40 households in Kabul, and illustrate the significance of the family as a site in which gendered power and subordination are disrupted, fragmented, negotiated, and interdependent, challenging assumptions of the family as a site of monolithic oppressive power against women

Democracy Report 2022: Autocratization Changing Nature?

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) produces the largest global dataset on democracy with over 30 million data points for 202 countries from 1789 to 2021. Involving over 3,700 scholars and other country experts, V-Dem measures hundreds of different attributes of democracy. V-Dem enables new ways to study the nature, causes, and consequences of democracy embracing its multiple meanings. The Democracy Report 2022 presents findings based on the newest edition of the V-Dem dataset (version 12). The data is the result of a vast international collaboration. We are immensely grateful to the 3,700 country experts without whose contribution V-Dem would not be possible, and to the Country Coordinators, Regional Managers, Project Managers, and Steering Committee Members for their principal roles.

“Am I What You See?” Unaccompanied Afghans in the Swedish media and their integration prospects

This thesis deals with representation of unaccompanied Afghan immigrants in the Swedish media. In the post-2015 context, unaccompanied Afghans have gained tremendous media attention in Sweden. However, how do unaccompanied Afghans perceive and evaluate these media images of themselves? How do these images impact their integration prospects in Sweden? In answering these questions, ten semi-structured qualitative interviews have been conducted. Using the cultural racism and intersectional perspectives, this thesis shows that unaccompanied Afghans consider media images of themselves highly generalist, monolithic, problem-oriented and deficient. The findings also illustrate that the deficient media images adversely impact unaccompanied Afghans’ integration prospects by limiting their access to housing market, standing on the way of their inclusion in school, and worsening their mental health

Alternative Forms of Resistance: Afghan Women Negotiating for Change

In this paper we examine how Afghan women resist, strategize and negotiate family and societal constraints to take advantage of the expanding education and employment opportunities in the post-Taliban era. We focus on how these women exercise agency and what resources they mobilize to maximize their opportunities in the face of potential constraints. We argue that to understand women’s agency and changing gendered power relations in the family, it is crucial to examine every day individual behaviors that deviate from prescribed dominant gender behavior and infuse altered meanings to dominant gendering discourses. Our research highlights that gendered power is partial, interrupted by situated emotions and relationships. Afghan women employ a range of resistance methods to overcome constraints placed in their way, and we discuss them through three thematic frameworks of resistance in acts of submission, sacrifice and situated agreement, resistance in acts of open defiance, and resistance in acts of negotiation. The analyses is based on in-depth interviews with 64 women from 40 households in Kabul, and illustrate the significance of the family as a site in which gendered power and subordination are disrupted, fragmented, negotiated, and interdependent, challenging assumptions of the family as a site of monolithic oppressive power against women

Varianter på demokrati Dataset - Version 10 - Land-År: V-Dem Full+Övriga

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. We provide a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles. V-Dem draws on theoretical and methodological expertise from its worldwide team to produce data in the most objective and reliable way possible. Approximately half of the indicators in the V-Dem dataset are based on factual information obtainable from offcial documents such as constitutions and government records. The other half consists of evaluative indicators on topics like political practices and compliance with de jure rules. On such issues, typically five experts provide ratings. V-Dem works closely with leading social science research methodologists and has developed a state of the art Bayesian Item Response Theory measurement model that, to the extent possible, minimizes coder error and addresses issues of comparability across countries and over time. V-Dem also draws on the team’s academic expertise to develop theoretically informed techniques for aggregating indicators into mid- and high-level indices. In this sense, V-Dem is at the cutting edge of developing new and improved methods of social science measurement.Varianter på demokrati (V-Dem) är ett internationellt forskningsprojekt vars syfte är att ta fram nya indikatorer på demokrati, i alla världens länder från år 1789 fram till idag. V-Dem erbjuder ett nytt sätt att konceptualisera och mäta demokrati, och särskiljer mellan fem demokratiprinciper: val-, liberal-, deltagar-, deliberativ- och jämlikhetsdemokrati, och samlar in data för att mäta dessa

Varianter på demokrati Dataset - Version 10 - Land-År: V-Dem Full+Övriga

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. We provide a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles. V-Dem draws on theoretical and methodological expertise from its worldwide team to produce data in the most objective and reliable way possible. Approximately half of the indicators in the V-Dem dataset are based on factual information obtainable from offcial documents such as constitutions and government records. The other half consists of evaluative indicators on topics like political practices and compliance with de jure rules. On such issues, typically five experts provide ratings. V-Dem works closely with leading social science research methodologists and has developed a state of the art Bayesian Item Response Theory measurement model that, to the extent possible, minimizes coder error and addresses issues of comparability across countries and over time. V-Dem also draws on the team’s academic expertise to develop theoretically informed techniques for aggregating indicators into mid- and high-level indices. In this sense, V-Dem is at the cutting edge of developing new and improved methods of social science measurement.Varianter på demokrati (V-Dem) är ett internationellt forskningsprojekt vars syfte är att ta fram nya indikatorer på demokrati, i alla världens länder från år 1789 fram till idag. V-Dem erbjuder ett nytt sätt att konceptualisera och mäta demokrati, och särskiljer mellan fem demokratiprinciper: val-, liberal-, deltagar-, deliberativ- och jämlikhetsdemokrati, och samlar in data för att mäta dessa

Varianter på demokrati Dataset - Version 10 - Land-Datum: V-Dem

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. We provide a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles. V-Dem draws on theoretical and methodological expertise from its worldwide team to produce data in the most objective and reliable way possible. Approximately half of the indicators in the V-Dem dataset are based on factual information obtainable from offcial documents such as constitutions and government records. The other half consists of evaluative indicators on topics like political practices and compliance with de jure rules. On such issues, typically five experts provide ratings. V-Dem works closely with leading social science research methodologists and has developed a state of the art Bayesian Item Response Theory measurement model that, to the extent possible, minimizes coder error and addresses issues of comparability across countries and over time. V-Dem also draws on the team’s academic expertise to develop theoretically informed techniques for aggregating indicators into mid- and high-level indices. In this sense, V-Dem is at the cutting edge of developing new and improved methods of social science measurement.Varianter på demokrati (V-Dem) är ett internationellt forskningsprojekt vars syfte är att ta fram nya indikatorer på demokrati, i alla världens länder från år 1789 fram till idag. V-Dem erbjuder ett nytt sätt att konceptualisera och mäta demokrati, och särskiljer mellan fem demokratiprinciper: val-, liberal-, deltagar-, deliberativ- och jämlikhetsdemokrati, och samlar in data för att mäta dessa

Varianter på demokrati Dataset - Version 10 - Kodare-Nivå

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. We provide a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles. V-Dem draws on theoretical and methodological expertise from its worldwide team to produce data in the most objective and reliable way possible. Approximately half of the indicators in the V-Dem dataset are based on factual information obtainable from offcial documents such as constitutions and government records. The other half consists of evaluative indicators on topics like political practices and compliance with de jure rules. On such issues, typically five experts provide ratings. V-Dem works closely with leading social science research methodologists and has developed a state of the art Bayesian Item Response Theory measurement model that, to the extent possible, minimizes coder error and addresses issues of comparability across countries and over time. V-Dem also draws on the team’s academic expertise to develop theoretically informed techniques for aggregating indicators into mid- and high-level indices. In this sense, V-Dem is at the cutting edge of developing new and improved methods of social science measurement.Varianter på demokrati (V-Dem) är ett internationellt forskningsprojekt vars syfte är att ta fram nya indikatorer på demokrati, i alla världens länder från år 1789 fram till idag. V-Dem erbjuder ett nytt sätt att konceptualisera och mäta demokrati, och särskiljer mellan fem demokratiprinciper: val-, liberal-, deltagar-, deliberativ- och jämlikhetsdemokrati, och samlar in data för att mäta dessa