Thesis advisor: Ali Banuazizi / The resurgence of religious violence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has led to a growing academic interest in the religionization of politics. Weary of the failures of secular nationalism in ensuring national security and protecting the right to self-determination, many communities have turned to religious nationalism to meet these political needs. As a result, some religious nationalist movements and organizations have resorted to violence in promoting their political agendas. This thesis conducts a comparative analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar in order to investigate the relationship between religion and violence and how this relationship contributes to the intractability of ethnic conflict. Key findings include symbiotic relationships between religious nationalist organizations and civil society, as well as latent processes of religious “Othering.” Implications for future peace-building efforts are explored, with a key focus on interfaith dialogue and grassroots activism. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Arts & Sciences Honors Program. / Discipline: Political Science.

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.

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

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This study focuses on the history of relations between the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo during a relatively extensive period, starting with the demise of the Ottoman Empire to present. It examines the process of the division of Kosovo society along ethnic, cultural, and religious lines that eventually made the seizure of power possible by nationalistic conservatives. The study investigates both Serbian and Albanian nationalism and speculates on why nothing had been done by the elite to contain the conflict in the first place. It seeks to explore the origins of the modern conflict and identifies the decisive factors that influenced the development of contradicting positions of two peoples that eventually led to open hostilities in 1998-99. The thesis employs a descriptive approach and reviews contemporary scholarly literature dedicated to the subject. / Major, The Ministry of Ukraine of Emergencies and Affairs of Population Protection from Consequences of Chernobyl Catastrophe

This diploma thesis deals with mediation as an instrument for ethnic conflict resolution in Africa. The author determined the feasibility and effectiveness of mediation as a tool for solving the ethnic conflict in Africa as the research topic of this thesis. The aim of the diploma thesis is to provide an evaluation of the current international legal regulation of mediation, of its sufficiency and integrity. Furthermore, the author aims to provide a comprehensive and complex view of the use of mediation in ethnic conflict resolution in Africa through an interdisciplinary analysis of the academic literature, both from Czech and foreign sources. The author sees her personal contribution by writing this thesis in the fact that in the Czech Republic the issue of mediation as a tool for ethnic conflict resolution has not been systematically researched yet. This diploma thesis is divided into four chapters, which are further subdivided into subchapters. The introductory chapter of this thesis describes a theoretical introduction to the issue of ethnicity and its legal regulation. Furthermore, the author deals with the origins of ethnic conflicts. The second chapter deals with the legal framework for international settlement of conflicts. This chapter also discusses in detail the various possible ways of...