Free and fair elections, accompanied by smooth transitions of democratically elected leaders, constitute one of the key pillars of democracy. The dawn of democratisation and advent of multi-party politics after the end of the Cold War in 1991, seemingly held great promise for Africa. However, in recent years, many elections in Africa have consistently become a source of violence. Electoral violence is threatening to become an intractable source of conflict on the African continent, making it hard for emerging democracies to consolidate their status as free democratic societies. Many remain largely autocratic or semi-democratic. African leaders are all too often not ready to relinquish political power, while political elites are ‘power hungry’ and use violence to skew the outcomes of elections in their favour. Hence, electoral violence is employed in order to manipulate civilian election choices and outcomes. Election violence is often deliberately used to target civilians, and in countries like Kenya involves inter-ethnic clashes. These “new wars” are fought unconventionally using ‘crude weapons’, (Kaldor 2013). Kaldor describes how these ‘new wars’ are fought as intra-state (within the state) wars in developing countries. Often, they are waged via state or county networks based on identity or ethnicity. The consequences of electoral violence include the destruction of property, reversed development, injuries, rape, death, internally displaced persons and refugees. Electoral violence persists despite attempts to contain it and measures to effectively manage these processes often prove to be inadequate. The study utilises an exploratory case study of Kenya during 2007-2008 Post-Election violence. The causes, the immediate steps that were initiated to mitigate violence and the reforms undertaken to generate peace structures and prevent future occurrences of post-election violence were explored. Forty-five participants representing involved citizens, negotiators and mediators were interviewed. The research was triangulated via the interview process, together with the use of primary document analysis and an extensive review of the literature. The data was analysed via the use of grounded theory. The research findings reveal that the causes of electoral violence are multi-faceted and multi-layered, with deep underlying issues. The causes include weak institutions, corruption, a non-representational electoral system, ethnicity and ethnic militia. Further causes include statelessness as experienced by certain groups, abuse of state resources and human rights violations. The role of political elites who withhold crucial information, thus denying the public the opportunity to make informed choices during elections was also found to contribute to electoral violence. Other information-related causes include biased media and sensational reporting. Findings also show that socio-economic issues such as poverty, unemployment, scarce resources and unmet basic human needs cannot be underestimated. Lastly, the causes of electoral violence included diverse interests of internal and external actors at play during elections. The findings revealed that although the Kenyan mediation process included the signing of a peace agreement, the root causes of electoral violence such as corruption, weak institutions, abuse of state resources and the unjust electoral system were not adequately addressed. A model for mediation for electoral violence which was explored and developed sought to build on the strengths of the Kenyan mediation process and address its inherent weaknesses, thus making this a significant contribution flowing from the study. The election model for mediation proposes certain key phases which include a pre-mediation process that will ensure a cessation of all hostilities; the mapping of the root causes of electoral violence and electoral reforms that provide resolutions that are acceptable to all the parties. Training of personnel at all levels of government to implement these reforms is also proposed. These measures can ensure the integrity and independence of electoral institutions from political manipulation. Training constitutes a crucial stage in the process of consolidating the emerging democracies. The model for mediation developed is therefore not only meant to mitigate electoral violence but is also intended to serve as a preventive measure. Many African states currently experience structural weaknesses similar to those that existed in Kenya before the 2007-2008 elections (and still persist). These fault lines include corruption, weak institutions, human rights violations, and lack of information. The proposed model for mediation which aims to counter these problems can thus be applied and adapted for implementation in Africa and globally. Several recommendations with implications for policy development are proposed to curb electoral violence. They include constitutional reforms, training of government and electoral officials and the introduction of a properly representational election system. This study, which focuses specifically on post-election violence, recommends further research investigating the pre-election phase, and ‘voting day’ causes of electoral violence for a more comprehensive approach to electoral violence research.

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This thesis examines the artisanal mining-combatant-recruitment nexus in war torn zones. With a case study of the Kivus in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has experienced one of the world’s worst blood-shedding over the last two decades, the study uses a constructivist Grounded Theory approach to research in terms of both data collection and analysis. It focuses on the existing body of knowledge on conflict analyses with a particular reference to the absurdity of abundance theory, which singles out the endowment of natural resources and weak governance as the main fuelling-factors of the conflict in the DRC. Data collection was carried out using diverse methods including literature reviews, interviews and focus groups. In particular, the study aims to explore how the demilitarisation of the mining zones could contribute to enhancement of the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants and promote social cohesion, sustainable peace and security in the eastern DRC. The analysis of the conflicts in the DRC and the acquaintance of belligerents with artisanal mining revealed the convoluted multi-layered nature of the conflicts in the country and their intricate causalities. The examination of the demilitarisation of the mining zones pertinent to the nexus between artisanal mining and the recruitment, reintegration and re-recruitment of combatants in the Kivus identified a few prerequisites in order to sever the artisanal mining-combatant-recruitment relationship that largely swivel around “bottom-up solutions”. The research contributes to knowledge in three broad areas; firstly, it contributes to ongoing academic debates on conflict analyses, the political economy of armed conflicts vis-à-vis mining sector as well as the mining sector and DDR of combatants in the DRC. Secondly, it offers empirical analysis and data on the combatants’ recruitment and DDR process and the artisanal mining sector with regards to state failure and protracted armed conflict in the DRC. Finally, it underlines the need to re-evaluate “the concept of community-based approach”, a key approach to improving peacebuilding and post-conflict recovery in the eastern DRC.

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This dissertation wants to understand the church history regarding the divide which resulted in the so called fundamentalist and the liberal movements in the church being birthed in identifying the reasons for the conflict between the aforementioned groups. It then presents principles of conflict transformation and management in order to understand and to help transform and manage potential confrontational situations between the aforementioned groups effectively. It further propose alternative interpretations to potential conflict-generating Bible texts by extrapolating new information from those texts in order to stir the potential of birthing a second naïve love for the discredited texts by offering new meanings to those same texts. Unfortunately, this objective can’t effectively be measured within the scope of this dissertation, but will nevertheless remain as an objective of hope.

South Africa‟s participation in international peace missions is guided by the White Paper of 1998 and premised specifically on the country‟s foreign policy objectives based on its vision of “a better South Africa, a better Africa and a better world”. South Africa recognises itself as an integral part of the African continent and therefore sees its national interests as being intrinsically linked to Africa‟s stability, unity and prosperity. Since 1994, South Africa has placed itself at the forefront of Africa's peace and security endeavours, trying to transform itself from international villain during apartheid years to Pan-Africanist peacemaker. The country has played an instrumental role in both shaping and setting the normative agenda of the African Union and Southern African Development Community. South Africa‟s participation in conflict resolution and peace missions in Africa is informed by an understanding of the nexus that exists between peace, security and sustainable development. This research focuses on South Africa‟s diplomatic and peacekeeping engagement in Lesotho, covering the constitutional and electoral crises from 1994 - 2015 constitutional crisis. The author shows the importance and way forward to resolve conflicts before they become escalated and deadly. The study calls for a „timely‟ reaction to disputes and conflicts on the African continent via preventive diplomacy, conflict provention and addressing of underlying issues that give rise to disputes and conflict.

An important focus of peacebuilding as a part of post-conflict reconstruction is the provision of basic needs. Peacebuilding is a move from war to a peaceful future. Peacebuilding rests on the premise that provision of people’s needs eliminates unrest and lawlessness that arise due to war. This in turn prevents a relapse into war. Also, communities that experience war lose many years and tend to develop at slower rates than peaceful areas, if at all they do develop. The twenty year old war in Northern Uganda has caused a gap between this area and the rest of the country. Poverty has left many unable to provide basic needs. Peacebuilding efforts have been undertaken by Non Governmental Organizations, Community Based Organizations, Government of Uganda as well as people in the community organizing themselves into groups to enable them reconstruct their lives. Efforts are being made towards reconstruction, resettlement, reconciliation and providing relief in an effort to move from war and destruction. In many societies, women are left out, marginalized and discriminated against as a result of patriarchy. Their roles in peacebuilding are not considered important and they face many challenges in their efforts to rebuild their lives and families. This research focused on the challenges faced by women in Gulu, a district in the Northern region of Uganda in peacebuilding. Through conducting face to face interviews, and consulting documents available to the public, the researcher collected information about the challenges faced by the Acholi women, the women of Gulu district.

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The purpose of the examination was to investigate the relationship between Jungian personality types (introversion, sensing, thinking, and judging) and individual's choice of different interpersonal- conflict management styles (avoiding, competing,--accommodating, compromising, and collaborating). The five conflict modes were defined according to the two basic behavioral dimensions of assertiveness and cooperativeness (Thomas, 1976). Also investigated was the possible relationship of gender with personality type and conflict management styles. Two-hundred and twenty-seven subjects completed two questionnaires, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) and the Rahim Organizational Conflict Indicator-11 (ROCI-II), to measure personality type and conflict management styles, respectively. Results indicated that introversion was positively related to avoiding and negatively related to collaborating. Thinking was negatively related to avoiding, accommodating, collaborating, and compromising. Conversely, thinking was positively correlated with competing. Gender type was found to have significant correlations with the variables. Females had a significant positive correlation between avoiding and introversion and a negative correlation between collaborating and introversion. accommodating and collaborating were negatively related with thinking, while competing was positively related to thinking. A significant positive correlation for males was found between introversion and avoiding. Negative correlations for males were found for sensing and compromising, and thinking and accommodating. The results suggest that basic psychological predispositions may influence the choice of conflict management styles. Moreover, the results provide an indication of the usefulness and potential of the five-category representation of conflict handling modes and the Jungian personality dimensions in documenting and explaining psychological bases of interpersonal conflict. These results are in partial agreement with previous research.

Submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Education in the Subject Educational Management in the Faculty of Education at the University of Zululand, 1993. / This research has looked into the methods which teachers and principals use to handle student-student, student-principal and student-teacher conflicts in KwaZulu secondary schools. It has revealed that teachers tend to use authoritarian and power based methods to manage conflicts with students. Authoritarian methods rely on coercive and position power to force students to comply. They include punishment and force of different kinds. The research has shown that authoritarian and power based methods of managing conflict in schools tend to have short term benefits only. The study has also found that some principals use competitive and authoritarian methods to manage conflicts which involve students. However, there is a definite effort by some principals to employ problem solving methods such as negotiation to solve conflicts with students. Where problem solving methods were used, positive relationships were enhanced. In some cases new ways of doing things at school were developed. The* extent to which other methods like avoidance and accommodation are used to deal with conflict was highlighted. The outcomes of these in schools were also shown. The research also indicated that the socio-economic and political history of education for Blacks in South Africa and KwaZulu, has created a great potential for conflict in schools. It was shown that schools in KwaZulu are in a situation where education does not adequately fulfill needs of students. As a result a lot of frustration occurs and students displace their feelings by resorting to socially disapproved means like violence. v(b) Other variables such as clash of values between teachers and students, misperceptions especially by students and lack of student involvement in decision making also contribute to conflict. According to the observations of principals, students also deal with conflict in aggressive and competitive ways. They demand whatever they believe they are deprived of; they become violent or resistant to school authority. Further, the study concluded that some teachers and principals increase the potential for conflicts in schools through defective management styles and negative interaction with students. The latter, namely negative interaction with students, was seen to be either part of estranged student-teacher or student-principal relationships or, in some cases, a result of poor communication and interpersonal skills of teachers or principals. All three parties (namely teachers, students and principals) cloud issues on conflicts by mixing them with emotions and by operating from certain belief systems. Such emotions as uncontrolled anger and resultant violence or beliefs that students cannot or may not participate in decisions at school, often worsened conflicts. The research discerned that a principal's or teacher's approach to managing conflicts tends to influence the outcomes.