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Why do warring parties sometimes end up occupying territories they do not claim while not occupying territory they do? How do they explain this and how can we, from this explanation, understand the logic of occupation at work in these cases? This is the puzzle and the research questions at the center of this thesis. Using a case study of the Karabakh War (1991-94) it seeks to understand the rationale behind the Armenian occupation of previously undisputed Azerbaijani-populated territories around the contested entity of Nagorno Karabakh (NK). To achieve this objective the thesis considers one of these districts – Agdam – and contrasts its occupation to the lack of a concerted effort to return control over previously Armenian-populated district of Shaumyan, a territory Armenians view as under Azerbaijani occupation. The thesis presents the circumstances and rationales provided by the Armenian leaders for these counter-intuitive policies of occupation they pursued during the Karabakh war. This necessitates examining the prior meanings of these places, the contested and changed significance of Agdam and Shaumyan since the Karabakh war. There are five distinct explanatory accounts of logics of occupation. These are accounts based on 1) military/security needs; 2) political elite-driven decisions, 3) economic gain, 4) psychological and 5) identity-related factors. Process tracing and archival research points to primarily security and psychological rationales for the original actions, whereas economic gain played a secondary role. While these factors remain significant in justifying continued occupation, today they are also strongly augmented by newly-constructed identity markers and political elite-driven considerations. / Master of Public and International Affairs

The hypothesis that language discrimination contributes to protest and/or rebellion is tested. Constitutional language policy regarding administrative/judicial, educational and other matters is measured on three separate scales developed for this study; the status of each minority group's language under its country's policy is measured by another set of scales. Protest and rebellion variables are taken from Gurr's Minorities at Risk study. Findings include an indication that group language status contributes positively to protest and rebellion until a language attains moderate recognition by the government, at which point status develops a negative relationship with protest and rebellion, and an indication that countries with wider internal variations in their treatment of language groups experience higher levels of protest and rebellion on the part of minority groups.

This paper aimed to analyse the impact of power sharing on democracy. The paper also compared the approach of Burundi and Rwanda in their constitutions to the concept of power sharing.

Research on ethnicity and conflict treats the concept of ethnicity as defining the actors in these conflicts, whereas research on the construction and maintenance of ethnic identity explores why ethnicity unifies individuals into a single social group. What happens when this unifying concept is divided between two enemy countries? How does this situation influence peace settlements over territorial issues, armed conflict, and economic relations between these countries? To answer these questions, I create a continuous measure of ethnic similarity between rivals. I find that ethnic similarity can facilitate cooperation and exacerbate conflictual interactions between rivals, but governments will seek to limit interactions with their rival when the cross border ethnic groups are minorities. In addition, I create categorical predictors of ethnic similarity, which reveal nuances in these relationships. Specifically, rivalries sharing a pan-ethnic identity are more likely to engage in conflict regardless of actual ethnic similarity, and dyads with a majority in one country sharing ethnicity with a minority in another country are less likely to fight once in a state of rivalry. This is because a quid pro quo exists between these rivals where one rival can reduce oppression of the minority in exchange for the other rival not supporting secessions by their co-ethnics. These pairs of rivals also are more likely to attempt peace settlements. Contested nations, which are rivalry-dyads with similar ethnic majorities, are both the most likely of the ethnically similar rival categories to engage in militarized interstate disputes, but also engage in larger amounts of interstate trade.

This paper aimed to analyse the impact of power sharing on democracy. The paper also compared the approach of Burundi and Rwanda in their constitutions to the concept of power sharing.

Conflict over territory is a major concern to scholars and policymakers, and much of conflict over territory is driven by the issues that make territory more or less attractive, or salient, to states. I examine the impact that tangible and intangible issue salience has on territorial claims, and in particular, how it drives both conflict and conflict escalation. I argue that intangible issues, such as ethnic or religious kin, plays a greater role in driving more severe forms of armed conflict and conflict escalation, compared to tangible factors such as natural resources. This is theorized to be due to the difficulty in dividing territory with intangible elements, as well as domestic political pressure driving leaders to escalate. These suppositions are supported, with the finding that identity plays a particularly crucial and unique role in driving states to more severe forms of armed conflict. Further, I examine how natural resources may be viewed by states by their type and form of utilization, with certain resources likely to be more valuable or strategic to states based on their rarity, concentration, or ease of substitution, based in part on a state's level of development. The results support a fairly uniform role of natural resources, with particular resources and combinations of resources serving to drive low level conflict, but with generally little impact on severe forms of armed conflict. Development also is found to play a role, driving poorer states to dispute natural resources of certain types. Lastly, I return to the topic of conflict over territory with an ethnic dimension by examining the role of issue indivisibility in the negotiations process, and find that negotiated settlements are harder to reach, and states more likely to favor unilateral action when disputing territory with an ethnic or religious component compared to other types of issues in claimed territory.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy: Public Management (Peacebuilding), Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2015. / Nigeria has witnessed a plethora of conflicts and violence especially since her post independent era. Direct and structural violence as well as cultural violence have largely dotted her history. The various nature of violence that have over the years keeps the country teetering at the verge of precipice include, resource-based conflict in the Niger Delta, indigenes-settlers conflicts, gender-based conflicts, ethno-religious conflicts, electoral cum political conflicts and the recent Boko Haram violent menace that has claimed at least 13,000 lives in Nigeria. There have been attempts by government and civil society organisations to curb violence in the country. However, their limited apparent success and the extent of violence underlines the need for alternative approaches to build peace in Nigeria. Building infrastructures for peace is one such alternative. Using an action research approach, the research focusses on establishing peace clubs in four high schools and implementing a programme for a 12 month period. / D

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Technology: Public Management, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2016. / Corruption has increasingly become a challenging issue that undermines peacebuilding processes. Anti-corruption efforts therefore constitute one of the ways of building and sustaining positive peace. Attempts to combat corruption generally follow one of three strategies which include: developing legal and punitive frameworks, establishing investigative and preventive mechanisms and promoting ethical values-based approaches. The present study has explored corruption in Rwanda and has highlighted the necessity of developing anti-corruption education as a way of combatting corruption. The first part of the study has used focus group discussions and interviews to collect information on corruption in Rwanda while the second part consists of experimental interventions organized to test an anti-corruption education curriculum. It has been realized that Rwanda, if compared with other African countries, has made remarkable progress in terms of fighting against corruption. However, the country still has a long way to go in order to achieve its ambition of building a corruption-free nation. The educational strategies to ensure the promotion of ethical values-based approaches have been found the weakest aspect of the anti-corruptioan campaign in Rwanda. This study has emphasized the necessity of involving children in the combat against corruption. Inspired by the Ubupfura ethical values, which are embedded in Rwandan culture, the study has proposed an anti-corruption curriculum for Rwandan children under the name of Nibakurane Ubupfura. Through the experimental interventions and preliminary evaluation of the curriculum, it has been demonstrated with evidence that the proposed anti-corruption education, applying an Ubupfura model, could significantly contribute to equipping children with the skills needed to disassociate and distance themselves from corrupt practices. With reference to the short-term impact of the experimental intervention conducted in this study, it leaves no doubt that the continous use of this education curriculum will help children to develop attitudes and behaviors that resist corruption. It is argued in this study that an effective campaign against corruption should consider promoting anti-corruption education with the aim of enabling present and future generations to maintain and live out the Ubupfura ethical values. Considering the link between anti-corruption and peacebuilding efforts, as explained in this study, it is underlined that efforts continuously made to raise such generations could undoubtedly move Rwandan society toward sustainable positive peace. / D

<p>\abstract</p><p>This dissertation seeks to explain the role of governmental and non-governmental actors in increasing/reducing the emergence of intergroup conflict after war, when group differences have been a salient aspect of group mobilization. This question emerges from several interrelated branches of scholarship on self-enforcing institutions and power-sharing arrangements, group fragmentation and demographic change, collective mobilization for collectively-targeted violence, and conflict termination and the post-conflict quality of peace. This question is investigated through quantitative analyses performed at the sub-national, national, and cross-national level on the effect of elite competition on the likelihood of violence committed on the basis of group difference after war. These quantitative analyses are each accompanied by qualitative, case study analyses drawn from the American Reconstruction South, Iraq, and Cote d'Ivoire that illustrate and clarify the mechanisms evaluated through quantitative analysis. </p><p>Shared findings suggest the correlation of reduced political competition with the increased likelihood of violence committed on the basis of group difference. Separate findings shed light on how covariates related to control over rent extraction and armed forces, decentralization, and citizenship can lead to a reduction in violence. However, these same quantitative analyses and case study analysis suggest that the control of the state can be perceived as a threat after the end of conflict. Further, together these findings suggest the political nature of violence committed on the basis of group difference as opposed to ethnic identity or resource scarcity alone. </p><p>Together, these combined analyses shed light on how and why political identities are formed and mobilized for the purpose of committing political violence after war. In this sense, they shed light on the factors that constrain post-conflict violence in deeply divided societies, and contribute to relevant academic, policy, and normative questions.</p> / Dissertation