Why have numerous peace agreements not led to peace? Peacemaking evolves within a specific social, political and economic context involving different actors, numerous issues, and domestic and international constraints. However, political leaders ultimately prioritize the interests of the nation, politicize issues, and initialize policies. The study proposes, first, that the belief system and perceptions of political leaders play an important role in the making of peace by directly influencing the political environment during the implementation phase of peace agreements. Second, the main obstacle to peace may lie within the leaders' failure to transform the political environment into one more conducive to peace. A theoretical model attempts to bridge the gap between leaders, implementation phases, and outcome, or impact on the political environment. The process of transformation results from three factors: trust, increased direct communication, and a positive alteration of the image of the opponent. This provides the necessary foundation for both leaders and populations to begin the difficult and shaky process of belief alterations and perception corrections. The cases of the Camp David Agreements leading to the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty of 1979, and the Oslo Accords of 1993 provide the basis for "probing" into the relevancy of these propositions.

Despite wide acceptance of the stereotype that women apologize more readily than men, there is little systematic evidence to support this stereotype or its supposed bases. In the present research, I explored whether gender differences in apology behaviour occur and, if so, why they occur. In Study 1, I used daily diaries to assess everyday apologies and found that women indeed apologized more frequently than men did. I found no difference in the proportion of offenses for which men and women apologized, however, suggesting that women may apologize more often than men do because they have a lower threshold for what constitutes offensive behaviour. In Studies 2 and 5, I replicated a gender difference in apology behaviour using hypothetical offenses and obtained evidence that this difference is mediated by different judgments of offense severity. In Study 3, I adapted a signal detection paradigm and demonstrated that women exhibit a more liberal response bias in the direction of remembering an apology. In Study 4, I found that women and men similarly associate apologies with positive outcomes, and that only women endorse the stereotype that women apologize more often than men do. Finally, in Study 6, I conducted a daily diary study with romantic couples and found that, as in Study 1, women and men apologized for a similar proportion of the offenses they reported. Together, these studies suggest that a gender difference in apology frequency is caused by different judgments of severity rather than by a difference in willingness to apologize.

Prior literature on conflict in teams has generally established that team heterogeneity (vs. homogeneity) influences the extent to which conflict occurs in teams. However, to date literature has not examined different types of culturally homogeneous teams’ experience of team conflict and its effect on team identity. In two field studies, I look at the effect of team cultural composition and conflict on team identity (Study 1) and the effect of team cultural composition on the tendency to engage in conflict over time (Study 2). Consistent with the literature on culture and dialectical reasoning that suggests East Asians are better able to tolerate contradictions and mixed emotions which usually accompany conflict situations, my results revealed that conflict did not affect East Asian teams’ identity, but it negatively impacted North American teams’ identity. Further, my results revealed that North American teams reported higher levels of conflict during the initial team interaction, but East Asian teams reported higher levels of conflict during later team interactions. I discuss contributions to theory on team conflict and identity and implications for managing culturally homogeneous North American and East Asian teams.

Indian academics leave India in large numbers to study or work abroad, primarily in the U.S.A., Great Britain, and Canada. Some subsequently return to India with new skills, knowledge, behaviour patterns, views and expectations. / This study focuses, within the context of the migration process, on the professional and personal adaptation of returning Indian academics. It examines adaptation in relation to motivations for emigration from India, life abroad, and return motivations. / Professionally, returnees face conflicts with the nature of the institutional environment, with limited opportunities to maximize the skills and knowledge acquired abroad, with the lack of support for research, and the resulting constraints on the contributions they could otherwise make to science and development. / At a personal level, they face conflicts with regards to salary and living conditions, differences in culture and value systems, and conformity with the expectations of others.

Media representations of conflicts and events are constructed in different ways and by different media in this world. Media is a very important actor in real-life politics, since problems could be represented in different ways, which provides different constructions, meanings and understandings in this world. Representation theory and more specifically ‘what is the problem represented to be approach’ implies as a theoretical tool in this research regarding Al-Jazeera’s’ representation of the Syrian conflict of 2011. The aim with this research is to analyze how Al-Jazeera news agency represents the nature of the conflict in Syria of 2011. The research is qualitative and uses Al-Jazeera’s articles as data material, all articles are analyzed during the first three months of the conflicts representation. As a result to this research, the Syrian conflict is represented by Al-Jazeera news agency from a specific point of view. The conflict is represented as a domestic political problem facing a force of overwhelming power that oppresses the Syrian citizens of expressing any political opinions. Al-Jazeera highlights a representation of a lack of democracy and freedom in the country where peaceful protestors are being tortured by the regime whenever they are demanding political changes. The cause of the conflict is according to Al-Jazeera embodied in the incident with some young boys expressing their liberal political opinions regarding the Arab Spring, however imprisoned and tortured by the state force. To briefly summarize the main findings of this research, Al-Jazeera represents the Syrian conflict as a conflict of domestic political oppression from the governments towards the Syrian population.

The aim of this research is to examine the changing nature of risks that face journalists and media workers in the world's difficult, remote and hostile environments, and consider the 'adequacy' of managing hostile environment safety courses that some media organizations require prior to foreign assignments. The study utilizes several creative works and contributions to this area of analysis, which includes a documentary film production, course contributions, an emergency reference handbook, security and incident management reviews and a template for evacuation and contingency planning. The research acknowledges that employers have a 'duty of care' to personnel working in these environments, identifies the necessity for pre-deployment training and support, and provides a solution for organizations that wish to initiate a comprehensive framework to advise, monitor, protect and respond to incidents. Finally, it explores the possible development of a unique and holistic service to facilitate proactive and responsive support, in the form of a new profession of 'Editorial Logistics Officer' or 'Editorial Safety Officer' within media organizations. This area of research is vitally important to the profession, and the intended contribution is to introduce a simple and cost-efficient framework for media organizations that desire to implement pre-deployment training and field-support – as these programs save lives. The complete proactive and responsive services may be several years from implementation. However, this study demonstrates that the facilitation of Managing Hostile Environment (MHE) courses should be the minimum professional standard. These courses have saved lives in the past and they provide journalists with the tools to "cover the story, and not become the story."

The present study examined the relationship between marital conflict, parenting conflict and emotional and behavioural problems in children aged 2 to 16 years. Additionally the psychometric properties of the Parent Problem Checklist (PPC; Dadds & Powell, 1991) were examined in sample of 200 parents sharing the role of parenting. The purpose of the present study was threefold: (1) to gain a measure of parenting conflict and children’s behavioural and emotional problems in a non-clinic referred community sample, (2) to examine the individual contribution of conflict specific to child-rearing to the prediction of child problems, and (3) to further validate the psychometric properties and examine the factor structure of the Parent Problem Checklist (PPC; Dadds & Powell, 1991). Findings support the hypothesis that parenting conflict influences children’s outcomes more than either general marital conflict or marital satisfaction. Analyses of the PPC show evidence of strong reliability and validity for the measure and factor analysis provided support for a two-factor structure. Implications for clinical practice and understanding the role of parenting conflict in the development of child difficulty are discussed.

The present research program was designed as an empirical investigation ofRelational Discrepancy Theory (RDT; Robins & Boldero, 2003). RDT proposes thatperceptions of discrepancies between relationship partners with respect to sharedaspirations and obligations (i.e., ideal and ought relational guides) have negativeemotional and relationship functioning consequences. Two kinds of relationaldiscrepancy are described: relational-guide discrepancies, which arise from theperception that one partner has more ambitious or demanding relational guides thanthe other; and relational-actual discrepancies, which arise from the perception that onepartner is actually better at meeting relational guides than the other. The fourempirical studies presented in this dissertation investigate the previously untestedpredictions of RDT regarding the impact of both kinds of discrepancies on closeness,conflict, disapproval of partners, and admiration of partners.

This thesis not only seeks to demonstrate the requirements of and procedures for recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in the Republic of China (ROC), but also explores whether ROC’s legislation and practices regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards comply with international ‘best practice’ standards as contained in the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention) and the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (UNCITRAL Model Law. Even though ROC’s former legislation and practices did not conform to these standards, the present legislation and practices do comply with the New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law. Although ROC and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) both insist on a ‘one China’ policy and each claims that it represents the whole of China, each has its own legal system. Nonetheless, ROC adopted the ‘regional conflict of laws’ theory based on the concept of ‘one country, two regions’ to deal with cases relating to recognition and enforcement arbitral awards rendered in PRC. In the context of that theory, this thesis explores the requirements of and procedures for recognition and enforcement of PRC arbitral awards in ROC, and whether there are any deficiencies in this regard. The thesis concludes that the ROC legislation and practices regarding recognition and enforcement of PRC arbitral awards in ROC are consistent with the New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law. The government of PRC resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao from 1 July 1997 and 20 December 1999 respectively. However, PRC adopted the principle of ‘one country, two systems’. PRC authorizes the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR) and the Macao Special Administrative Region (Macao SAR) to exercise a high degree of autonomy and to enjoy executive, legislative and independent judicial, including that of final adjudication. Thus, the ROC legislation deems that Hong Kong and Macao arbitral awards are foreign arbitral awards in ROC. So, the legislation and practices regarding recognition and enforcement of Hong Kong arbitral awards and Macao arbitral awards also are in conformity with the New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law. Moreover, the legislation and practices regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign, PRC, Hong Kong, and Macao arbitral awards go further than international standards set out by the New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law. Applying for recognition or enforcement of a foreign, PRC, Hong Kong, or Macao arbitral award, an original arbitration agreement or an original arbitral award can be substituted by an electronic format, which was made originally and can show the whole text as well as can be downloaded for examination. Furthermore, the courts of ROC construe the limitations regarding recognition or enforcement foreign, PRC, Hong Kong, or Macao arbitral awards narrowly. In addition, even though the ROC legislation regarding recognition and enforcement of foreign, Hong Kong, and Macao arbitral awards adopts the principle of reciprocity, the ROC Courts adopt the notion of comity. The thesis clarifies recognition and enforcement of PRC arbitral awards in Hong Kong, and recognition and enforcement of Hong Kong arbitral awards in PRC as well. Hong Kong arbitral awards are enforceable in PRC, and PRC arbitral awards also are enforceable in Hong Kong in accordance with the Arrangement Concerning Mutual Enforcement of Arbitral Awards Between Mainland and the Hong Kong SAR 2000 (PRC) and the Arbitration (Amendment) Ordinance 2000 (Hong Kong SAR) respectively based on the principle of ‘one country, two systems’. Both the provisions of the Arrangement Concerning Mutual Enforcement of Arbitral Awards Between Mainland and the Hong Kong SAR 2000 (PRC) and the Arbitration (Amendment) Ordinance 2000 (Hong Kong SAR) comply with the international standards set out in the New York Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law.

Masters Research - Master of Philosophy (MPhil) / The psychosocial stress of social conflict contributes to the development of depression and anxiety in those individuals vulnerable to its effects, yet the factors that contribute to vulnerability remain unclear. Researchers investigating factors such as behaviour and physiology have used the animal resident/intruder social conflict model whereby a young male rodent (intruder) is placed into the home cage of an older male (resident) that is trained to attack and defeat all intruders. Findings reported previously have shown that defeated intruders displayed medium to longer-term stress-related changes in behaviour and physiology, with considerable variability in the severity of these changes reported from one individual to another. Interestingly, a reduction in severity of behavioural and physiological changes was associated most significantly with intruders that deployed ‘active coping’ behaviours during the social defeat interaction than animals that deployed ‘passive coping’. However, these findings do not describe the short-term effects, raising the question; does coping style also influence the short-term stress response? We investigated the relationship between coping behaviour adopted by intruders during a 10 minute social conflict culminating in defeat and both acute peak plasma corticosterone (CORT) stress hormone levels and number of cells expressing Fos protein in eight brain regions. Our investigations revealed that higher levels of fight and guard behaviours were associated with lower peak plasma CORT levels compared to ready submission, and that higher levels of fight were associated with fewer numbers of Fos-ir cells in prefrontal cortex (PFC), amygdala (Am), and paraventricular nucleus (PVN) brain regions. In general terms, these findings indicate that coping behaviour deployed during social conflict influences the endocrine and neurobiological elements of the acute phase of the HPA axis response to psychosocial stress. Intruders that deploy an ‘active’ coping style including fight behaviours display significantly smaller physiological and neurobiological alterations in the acute response than intruders that deploy a ‘passive’ coping style during social conflict. These results demonstrate that the vulnerability to the effects of psychosocial stress are ameliorated by actively engaging with the perpetrator rather than passively taking the attack, and that adopting the behaviour fight is most protective. Further elucidation of the neural mechanisms that underpin the reduction in stress-induced effects is warranted.