This essay will examine how two Swedish newspapers from two different political wings reported the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1968-1998) in the early 1970’s. There was a very specific line of thought present in the general discourse about political violence in Sweden during the 1970’s. The study found that the two newspapers had different approaches to both this Swedish line of thought and the Troubles itself. The social democratic newspaper Arbetet had a rather emotional tone in their articles about the conflict.  In the moderate Borås Tidning the discourse was vastly different. The emotions present in Arbetet were missing and exchanged with an objective view of the conflict with a hardline neutrality embossing the articles. No sympathies for either side of the conflict was shown in any of the newspapers. Arbetet was however more passionate about the conflict while the interest for the conflict dwindled in Borås Tidning with smaller and smaller articles as a result.

Many post-conflict societies, even those which have been free from active conflict for decades, continue to be heavily divided along the same lines on which the conflict was once fought. While active conflict might be a distant memory, the legacy of conflict ensures the group identities which either caused or were borne out of the conflict remain strong. Achieving a situation where a society truly lets go of the anger and resentment that fuels its divisions has proven to be an allusive prospect, however, it’s a goal many post-conflict states continue to reach for. The effort a state uses to try to deconstruct these potentially harmful social identities and to deal with the conflict-related grievances which strengthen them can be loosely understood as post-transitional justice. Part of the reason why effective reconciliation has proven so difficult is that post-transitional justice typically requires societies to reopen old wounds and publicly address challenging memories. Thus, in the context of divided post-conflict societies, post-transitional justice, if not properly implemented, can itself be a divisive procedure and one that risks heightening tensions rather than reducing them. Despite this clear risk, little research has been conducted to understand what factors are likely to make the difficult process of introducing post-transitional justice more or less successful. This thesis addresses this research gap. It uses a social identity approach to examine how socio-political context influences group identification and inter-group behaviour in divided societies and how these behaviours subsequently impact how those groups perceive post-transitional justice mechanisms. This thesis draws on the timely case of Northern Ireland, which is in the process of introducing a wide-reaching post-transitional justice mechanism at a time when the socio-political context has been markedly challenged by Brexit and other socio-political events. Through a mixed methods approach which used both questionnaires and key informant interviews, this thesis demonstrates how the recent socio-political context in Northern Ireland has significantly heightened nationalist and unionist identification with their groups and has concurrently heightened tensions between the two groups. This thesis shows how this environment has subsequently made these groups less likely to accept the terms of the post-transitional justice mechanism, thus limiting its ability to reach its goal of creating an enabling environment for reconciliation, trust, and peacebuilding.

This thesis examines the British army and its legacy of counterinsurgency from the 20th century. It analyses the effects of post-colonial counterinsurgency and the army’s ability to learn from previous counterinsurgency conflicts to create new doctrine from earlier examples that could have had lessons for the UK forces in southern Iraq. Doctrine (both official and unofficial) ranges from endorsed army field manuals to theory written by experts while on defence fellowships. The army’s ability to create new doctrine from previous campaigns lessons and how it is diffused across the armed forces is also assessed. The conflicts used as post-colonial counterinsurgencies scrutinise Oman and Northern Ireland. These two case studies provide mixed lessons, that should advance and expand British counterinsurgency theory and models. The previous historical occurrences of counterinsurgency have created a British approach which has established a four-pillar framework which encompasses minimum force, civil-military co-operation, use of intelligence and tactical flexibility. This approach could identify lessons for a modern British army deployed to Iraq. If lessons and previous outcomes are analysed to create new doctrine, strategy and tactics that encompass the four pillars framework, what went wrong in southern Iraq? Could lessons from earlier campaigns have assisted British efforts?

Endangered languages are those that are spoken by a very small percentage of the population and are at risk of disappearing with all the knowledge and diversity they contain. Endangered languages often become endangered because the speakers and the society perceive the language as low status or of little use, and a positive change in perception of the language could aid in revitalizing the language. Institutions such as governments, businesses, and universities have recently begun supporting endangered languages in several areas, and this support could greatly affect language ideologies, perceptions of and attitudes about the language. In this research project, I intend to explore the effects on how an endangered language is viewed by both speakers and non-speakers when it is supported by linguistically dominant institutions such as business and higher education. This research was conducted in various areas of Scotland and Ireland and consists of survey data, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation. Specifically, this research aims to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the relationship between institutional support and language ideologies? 2) How do different forms of institutional support affect language ideologies? Institutional support of endangered languages could provide these languages with validity and recognition as a language, as well as offer economic and status advantages to speakers, creating positive attitudes about speaking and learning the languages. This positive change in the way these languages are perceived could be a crucial step in revitalizing endangered languages and preserving the linguistic diversity of the world.

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