This research tested the hypothesis that militarization of societies, as defined by the percent of national budgets spent on military expenditures, has adverse effects on women's economic status relative to men's. This study also examined other predictor variables known to affect women's status. Data from sixty different nations were analyzed by means of multiple regression techniques. Results show that the militarization variable increased women's share of agriculture, which suggests that as men are mobilized into military activities, women are left to produce food for the country, a situation which can have contradictory effects on women's economic status. What is more important than militarization in predicting women's economic status relative to men's are high birth rates and sex ratios, which clearly depress women's economic opportunities.

In 2008, a policy to address the territorialisation of the drug trade in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas was developed: the pacification of favelas. It involves two key elements, policing and local development, which are said to work in tandem to conquer the territory from drug dealers and integrate these areas to the city. Drawing from the literature on the governance of marginalized areas and neoliberal practices of security, this study explores how the pacification of favelas unfolds within a neoliberal context. The findings of this study are based on a thematic analysis of twenty-five in-depth interviews with key actors involved in the development and implementation of three core projects of the policy (the Pacifying Police Unit and two projects that coordinates social efforts, UPP Social and Peace Territories). Using the theoretical lenses of pacification proposed by Neocleous (2011) and Rigakos (2011), this research argues that the pacification of favelas can be considered a "project of pacification" (Rigakos, 2011). The analysis demonstrates that the dual strategy of the policy reinforces neoliberal practices to govern through fear, resulting in the militarization of favelas. Moreover, this study also finds that this policy serves capitalist interests when implemented within a neoliberal framework, even though its core elements resemble interventionist initiatives of colonial enterprises. My findings also reveal that some participants resist the implementation of initiatives based on a neoliberal framework. However, although their actions seek to emancipate and build an ethical community in favelas, based on long-term and fraternal bonds, the mainstream approach is still prevalent. As a result, favelas are progressively turned into aesthetic communities in which the interests of the market are the driving force.

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No description available.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a territorial and ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that has led to war, displacement, trauma and continuing animosities. This thesis examines the differential long-term effects of the conflict in the lives of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and refugees from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh who have remained largely excluded from current peacebuilding initiatives. Ethnographic fieldwork and interviews were conducted with displaced and refugee women and with queers in Sumgayit and Baku in Azerbaijan and around Tbilisi in Georgia. The research uses an intersectional sensibility to explore the constitution and effects of economic hardship, ill-health and social exclusion as well the militarization in the life histories and everyday experiences of IDP and refugee women and queers. On this basis, it reflects what their participation, insights and concerns could contribute to the stalled peace processes and what cultural and societal changes will be required for peacebuilding and a more lasting resolution of this frozen conflict. Key words: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, gender, ethnicity, intersectionality, peacebuilding, militarization, queer community, IDP and refugee women 1

In the years following 9/11, research has shown that United Nations peacekeeping has grown increasingly militarized. Meanwhile, there have long been calls for women’s increased participation in peacekeeping, for a myriad of reasons mainly founded on instrumental and essentialist arguments. According to feminist theories, however, militarization would limit the agency of women as they are often placed in marginalized, protected roles when such a militarization occurs. Against this background, this thesis has utilized a visual and textual discourse analysis to investigate memory books published by the Swedish Armed Forces, which detail the presence of the Swedish contingency in MINUSMA in the period 2014-2019, to understand the connection between female peacekeeper’s agency and the increasing militarization of the UN’s most deadly peacekeeping mission. The findings suggest that militarization does not seem to limit the agency of Swedish female peacekeepers, who have seen their roles become more varied and seemingly possess more agency later than earlier on in the mission, despite an increased militarization of the peacekeeping mission. The thesis thus contributes to an underexamined connection between agency and militarization in the context of peacekeepers, while exploring a heretofore unexamined material. In doing so, the thesis opens for further research in both the material itself as well as further comparative studies.

How do riots affect civil conflict? The effects of riots on escalation and civil conflict have largely been overlooked in the peace and conflict literature. I argue that this omission is of particular significance because riots could act as a potent escalatory proxy for a government authority and legitimacy crisis, a robustly supported cause of escalation and civil conflict. Drawing on civil conflict theories concerning motivation, feasibility, and contentious politics, the hypothesis as riots increase, the intensity of state-based organized violence increases was developed. To test this hypothesis, a zero-inflated negative binomial regression analysis was conducted on 14728 country-month observations from African countries between 1997 and 2020, using riot events and state-based organized violence fatality data and theoretically and empirically motivated controls. Notwithstanding certain research design limitations, the regression analysis and the complementary tests and investigation strategies yielded findings that support the hypothesis and the supposition that riots tend to affect civil conflict by increasing the intensity of state-based organized violence. The novelty of the findings opens up avenues for future research and sheds light on the value of studying lower-level societal violence and minor-scale escalatory dynamics to enhance our collective understanding of civil conflicts.

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No description available.

Los Zetas are considered by security analysts to be a transformative force within transnational criminal organizations (TCO), exporting their unique model throughout Mexico. Los Zetas’ idiosyncratic interventions include their diversification of criminal operations, professionalization of TCO security, sophisticated use of media and technology, extreme forms of violent coercion, and decentralized command structure. This project aims to complicate the narrative that Los Zetas emerged because of top leaders’ sadistic tendencies or due to an inherently violent culture in Mexico by reframing the group’s evolution within historical processes. Moving beyond Los Zetas, this project examines how persons affected by Los Zetas’ indiscriminate use of violence are forces of activism and social change, connecting opposition culture in Mexico to criminal impunity and resistance movements in Guerrero. Examining Los Zetas in connection with Cold War militarization in Latin America, processes of democratization in Mexico, and the neoliberal order, this analysis views Los Zetas as products and agents of structural inequities, destroying spaces of community cohesion to create spaces of elite economic growth.