Browsing by Subject "Equality"

This dissertation is a thematic analysis of the concept of gender in the European Union’s Gender Action Plan III. The Gender Action Plan III (GAP III) is the European Union’s action plan on gender equality and women's empowerment (European Commission 2020). I argue that as a Gender Action Plan, gender is a crucial concept of said action plan and as such should be clearly defined. I further argue that gender should not be limited to women and men. I use thematic analysis and Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse the language and the meaning of the language that deals with gender (equality) in the GAP III. The theoretical framework of this dissertation consists of the theory and literature on Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP). FFP literature is useful because the GAP III can be analysed (and criticised) over a lot of the same themes as governmental feminist foreign policies (Aggestam & Bergman Rosamond 2018; Bernarding & Lunz 2020; Scheyer & Kumskova 2019). These themes include for instance: the concept of gender and militarism (Ibid.). FFP theory and literature aids me in finding relevant themes and issues in the GAP III. As I analyse the concept of gender in the GAP III, I find that it is defined rather insufficiently. I find that it is often reduced to women and girls. I conclude that the GAP III begins with gender but ends up with women and girls.

This master’s thesis explores the paradox human rights that was identified by Hannah Arendt seventy years ago, which will be analysed in view of the critique presented by Jacques Rancière. Despite his critique, it is clear that Arendt has made a significant contribution to Rancière’s own thinking about human rights. Arendt is critical of the concept of human rights. Arendt emphasizes that a human being must be recognized as an equal legal and political subject of a political community in order to be able to effectively claim the rights. Arendt describes the loss of human rights as the loss of a meaningful place in the world and identifies a paradox, which questions the entire concept of human rights. According to Arendt, the most fundamental human right is “the right to have rights” that can be understood as the right to belong to a political community. According to Jacques Rancière, Arendt’s critique of human rights stems from the anti-political and archi-political features of her thinking. I suggest, following Andrew Schaap, that there are some features in Arendt’s thinking that can be interpreted as anti-democratic, but it does not mean that Arendt’s understanding of human rights is as problematic as Rancière suggests. According to Ayten Gündoğdu, Arendt’s understanding of human rights is not as paralyzing as Rancière argues. Rancière’s critique reflects his own understanding of the concepts of politics, the police, dissensus, the axiomatic principle of equality and the process of political subjectification. As Andrew Schaap has argued, despite their similarities, there are significant differences in Arendt’s and Rancière’s understanding of human rights, which appear when analyzing for instance example of the sans papier movement. This thesis has an introduction and six chapters. The second chapter introduces Hannah Arendt’s understanding of human rights and the human condition. The third chapter introduces Rancière’s critique of Arendt, and presents his understanding of the concepts of politics, the political, dissensus, the axiomatic principle of equality and the subject of human rights. The fourth chapter provides an analysis of the Aristotelian influence on Arendt and Rancière and the relevance of speech in their respective theoretical frameworks as well as an analysis of the concept of legal personhood. The fifth chapter provides an analysis of Rancière’s critique of Arendt, according to which she has adopted an archi-political position and a comparison of their respective theoretical frameworks in view of Andrew Schaap. The sixth chapter explores Ayten Gündoğdu’s aporetic reading of Arendt and the possibilities to rethink her understanding of human rights and her strict separation of the political and the social before providing the conclusions in the seventh chapter.

Objective. In today’s workplaces an increasing number of tasks is completed in teams. Hence, to understand the psychological processes affecting interaction within and success of teams in different environments is of great importance. To study these processes, a new TT10 questionnaire (84 questions, 10 separate subscales) was created. The aim of this thesis was to study the validity and reliability of the TT10 by studying multiple literature-based hypotheses about connections between the subscales of the TT10 in two separate studies. Methods. In study 1 (n=49) 10 teams from two Finnish technology companies filled the TT10 and basic demographic information online. In study 2 (n=124) there were 62 pairs consisting of an employee of a Finnish insurance company and a customer. The counterparts in each pair were anonymously in contact with each other in an online chat for 20 minutes during which their task was to solve puzzles together. After the experiment they were asked to review the interaction of their pair with a shortened version (27 questions) of the TT10. Results. Almost all of the hypotheses gained support. Different subscales were in connection with each other mostly in the hypothesized ways. Conclusions. The most promising subscales of the TT10 were psychological safety, social cohesion, collaboration, and co-flow. However, limitations such as a very limited number of participants in study 1 made some of the results a bit unclear. However, according to these preliminary results, the TT10 seems to be a promising questionnaire that still needs fine-graining.