This Master‟s thesis is the result of research conducted through field-work which has taken place in Sweden, and additionally text analysis. The aim of this study is to explore the specific case of the Colombian diaspora in Sweden, to discover the reactions, possible involvements, and motivations for involvements and/or un-involvements in relation to their homelands currently ongoing peace negotiation process. This study first seeks to understand the overall reaction and attitudes of the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden towards the peace negotiations, and then looks to provide an understanding over possible influences being exerted from the Colombian diaspora members, and why or why not there is an exert of influence/involvement. The overall understanding of how the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden react to the peace process, are involved/un-involved, and their motivations behind what they do has been discovered through the field-work conducted in this study. This field-work was conducted solely in Sweden, as to provide the specific case of the Colombian diaspora member in Sweden, through qualitative methods and has used semi-structured interviews as well as questionnaires in English and Spanish to collect the information needed to answer the aim of the research presented in this study. Through the field-work, this study has discovered strong hesitations on the Colombian diaspora member behalves to not only be involved in any form of economic, social and political means of influence towards the peace process, but to also take part in this study. The concerns presented by the Colombian diaspora members towards involvements and/or un-involvements are those of political interests, hesitations from the strong bi-polarity of the Colombian society, as well as personal security. Overall, this study has discovered that there is more support from the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden for the ongoing peace negotiations than non-support, but that very few involvements are exerted by this small population of Colombian diaspora members in Sweden.

<p>The objective of the thesis is to study the Sri Lankan negotiation process during 2000-2006 sponsored by the Norwegian facilitation and further to analyse the major constraints hin-dering a final solution.</p><p>The stated purpose is analysed by studying both primary and secondary materials such as official documents, research and newspaper articles. One of the major findings of the thesis is that the Norwegian facilitation has not been very effective mainly due to both domestic and international political developments in recent years. In the case of domestic politics, the Sri Lankan political arena has a tradition of political crisis which is mainly a result of the two major Sinhalese parties fighting for power. These parties have been blocking any sus-tainable solution for Tamil demands while focusing on their political power.</p><p>Furthermore, international attitudes towards the warring parties are found to have had a huge impact on the Sri Lankan peace process during the studied period. Since one of the major constraints in the negotiation process appears to be that the Government of Sri Lanka seems to have adopted the international “realpolitik” on its domestic issue in the name of the war on terror. This political strategy may further inflate the already existing na-tionalism among the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority and thus may intensify the conflict.</p>

The role of civil society in conflict resolution has moved from the margins to the core of analyses of peace processes. However, existing literature has put little attention on examining the contribution of civil society in the implementation of peace agreements in the immediate time upon their conclusion. I aim to fill this gap by asking “How does the mode of civil society inclusion during the pre-agreement stage influence the degree of civil society participation in the implementation of peace agreements?”. I argue that when civil society can directly influence the peace talks by having a seat at the negotiation table this can have downstream effects on how much they will be involved in the implementation of the agreed provisions. The research question is answered in the context of a qualitative study of the cases of the peace process in Mozambique and El Salvador, through the method of structured focused comparison. The findings do not support this expectation. The analysis rather indicates that direct participation is not enough for civil society actors to ensure continuity in their participation, and more substantive engagement and ownership might be needed.

The aim of this study is to analyse the contents in texts about the intra-Syrian peace negotiations, as well as identify latent political meanings, through examining how the sides of the war are portrayed in al-Jazeera´s coverage. Dr Zainab Abdul-Nabi suggests in her analysis of al-Jazeera´s coverage of another event in the Syrian war, namely the chemical attack in Ghouta, that al-Jazeera has a catalysing role in the Arab Spring when covering the Syrian war in particular. This study continues along those lines that Abdul-Nabi suggests by analysing the coverage of another event in the Syrian war – the UN-led intra-Syrian peace negotiations. Purposefully, this study should increase the awareness of how political meanings could be hidden in texts. The theory of agenda setting, a theory by Walter Lippman which was further developed by McCombs and Shaw, is used in this study: media set the agenda by inserting certain portraits of how things are and what the society should be concerned about. Content analysis is the method used to perform this study, following Halperin and Heath´s model. By interpreting articles from an influential media source – al-Jazeera – the analysis shows that the examined texts portray the opposition as protagonists against a brutal government, plausibly making the media source a part of the war since the texts attempt to set the agenda that a certain side is the protagonists and another is the antagonists. Underplaying the potential capacities of the peace negotiations and not compromising with the other side is evident, as well as holding the other side responsible of the hostilities in the war, in the texts, hence having a catalysing role with its coverage in the war. Also, the texts tend to leave out details concerning the other side (the government side), portraying the opposition to be representing the people..

The Political action of citizen’s individually or collectively is always determined by a multiplicity of factors: first, political socialisation; second, logic of the dominant political culture in the society; third, factors of ideological nature; forth, religious factors to name but a few. In the particular case of Mozambique it can be seen that from independence in 1975 onwards the political and religious dimension went through several changes. In the political area the changes were observed more profoundly after the independence of the country under the orientation of FRELIMO the political party in power. From that moment until 1990 the country was governed by the domination of one political party under a Marxist system of socialism. In the religious arena, the domination of the Roman Catholic Church was observed prior to independence since it was working together with the dominators (Portuguese) and other Christian religions were persecuted by this church. However, after independence another dimension became a changing force within the country. First of all the relationship between FRELIMO and the church was not good. Second, from 1982 this relationship started to take on a positive nature. The questions that then arose were the following: What are the factors that might have contributed to this changed situation? How can this dimension be explained? What are the implications of these changes? This study seeks to discuss the role played by the church and the state in the democratisation process of Mozambique. It starts by exploring the general background of Mozambique where issues such as liberation, civil wars and eventually peace negotiations are discussed. It discusses also the church and state relationship highlighting the contribution from the protestant churches towards Mozambican independence. This study discusses and explains the reasons why the church should be participating in political issues in order to build a good and decent democracy for all the people in Mozambique. Following, it demonstrates and discusses in a nutshell some of the activities undertaken by different churches who have sought collaboration with civil society and political authorities for the edification of peace, democracy, development and the wellbeing of human beings in Mozambique. It also discusses some issues both positive and negative regarding the elections that have occurred in Mozambique. Finally from the observation and analysis that has been completed, the conclusion of this study is in the form of some recommendations which will help to improve the kind of democracy that the majority of the people in Mozambique crave. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Church History and Church Policy / unrestricted

The study of civil society participation in peace negotiations has become increasingly popular. Although research has stressed the importance of coordination among civil society groups, no study has so far been conducted that studies the impact coordination among civil society groups can have on the quality of a peace agreement. This thesis aims to fill this gap by asking How does the extent of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations impact the quality of a peace agreement? Springing from the premise that civil society groups are aware of underlying conflict causes, this thesis argues that a high extent of civil society groups’ coordination leads to a highquality peace agreement and that this is particularly so when a civil society actor is facilitating the coordination. By applying the method of structured focused comparison, these hypotheses are tested on Guatemala, El Salvador, and Liberia. The empirical findings do not show support for the hypotheses. A variety of factors were discovered during the analysis that could have hampered the impact of civil society groups’ coordination or could hold alternative explanatory power and thus stress the need for further research.

The objective of the thesis is to study the Sri Lankan negotiation process during 2000-2006 sponsored by the Norwegian facilitation and further to analyse the major constraints hin-dering a final solution. The stated purpose is analysed by studying both primary and secondary materials such as official documents, research and newspaper articles. One of the major findings of the thesis is that the Norwegian facilitation has not been very effective mainly due to both domestic and international political developments in recent years. In the case of domestic politics, the Sri Lankan political arena has a tradition of political crisis which is mainly a result of the two major Sinhalese parties fighting for power. These parties have been blocking any sus-tainable solution for Tamil demands while focusing on their political power. Furthermore, international attitudes towards the warring parties are found to have had a huge impact on the Sri Lankan peace process during the studied period. Since one of the major constraints in the negotiation process appears to be that the Government of Sri Lanka seems to have adopted the international “realpolitik” on its domestic issue in the name of the war on terror. This political strategy may further inflate the already existing na-tionalism among the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority and thus may intensify the conflict.

Civil society inclusion in peace processes has been recognised to be crucial in achieving sustainable peace. The author first reviews the existing academic literature on this, before looking at how civil society, and especially civil society in non-western contexts and armed conflicts can be conceptualised. The variety of approaches and the limitations of Western actor-based concepts in non-Western contexts explains the choice of a function-based model of civil society being chosen to analyse it in the context of international peacebuilding efforts. Its involvement in formal peace processes and negotiations meanwhile is analysed using nine models of inclusion.  The case that is chosen for this exploration is Afghanistan. As a multi-facetted country with a long history of armed conflict and foreign involvement, the developments in the past two decades provide an interesting case study. The inductive desk research, using secondary data, is guided by the questions; which concept of civil society has informed the peace building process in Afghanistan in the past twenty years, how civil society in Afghanistan can be conceptualized and how this has affected the peace building process.  The findings paint a distinct picture of a country that has been shaped by armed conflict, tracing its roots back to the early days of modern Afghanistan and contrasting existing societal and political structures with Western concepts of civil society and state building. Civil society involvement is being analysed using exemplary stages of peace processes and external peace building efforts.  The research concludes that civil society inclusion has been limited by Western concepts of civil society being unfittingly applied to far more complex local realities, thereby excluding relevant actors and limiting the legitimacy and ownership of the peace process, with the prospect of peace being a long way off.

[pt] Esta pesquisa aborda a questão da inclusão nas negociações de paz de um ângulo diferente daquele normalmente empregado pela literatura de Estudos sobre Paz e Conflitos (PCS). Este tema vem ganhando cada vez mais atenção nas últimas décadas: embora por muito tempo tenha sido visto apenas como uma fonte de perturbação no caminho de acordos políticos, a inclusão da sociedade está lentamente sendo aceita como uma perturbação necessária à construção de acordos legítimos e de uma paz duradoura. O desconforto que motiva esta investigação decorre da frequente despolitização e instrumentalização da inclusão no contexto da negociação e mediação da paz. A inclusão é muitas vezes tratada como uma entidade benigna que visa cultivar a legitimidade de um novo sistema político, enquanto sua natureza política inerente – as articulações políticas, disputas e exclusões que envolve – recebem pouca atenção. A literatura tende, portanto, a tratar tanto o processo de paz como o sistema político em negociação como um dado, neutralizando as disputas e exclusões que se renovam ou se criam pela reinvenção política envolvida em um processo de paz. Essa discussão não é de forma alguma dispensável se se quiser refletir sobre a construção da paz e a prevenção de conflitos em longo prazo, ou mesmo sobre a inclusão política em geral e a atual crise vivida pela democracia representativa. No esforço de politizar essa discussão, a tese disseca a ideia de inclusão nos processos de paz, analisando-a pelas lentes conceituais da representação política. Ao contrário de nossa tendência contemporânea de considerar a representação apenas o produto pontual de eleições periódicas, aqui o conceito é tomado em uma interpretação crítica e ampliada, considerada no contexto de seus dilemas atuais e sua relação complexa com a participação política, particularmente à luz da teoria democrática feminista. Além das eleições e da autorização formal, a pesquisa considera a representação política possível e presente em situações diferentes dos ambientes institucionalizados usuais, tais como as negociações de paz. Uma dupla estratégia é buscada para enfrentar esse desconforto: uma, uma discussão teórica da literatura existente sobre inclusão, que é relida por meio de sua interpretação como questão de representação política; e a segunda, uma observação empírica desse debate no contexto do caso colombiano, mais especificamente o papel das mulheres nos diálogos de Havana entre o governo e as FARC-EP (2012-2016). Esta parte se baseia na documentação disponível (declarações e relatórios oficiais, acordos de paz, material da mídia, relatórios da sociedade civil) e em um trabalho de campo realizado em Bogotá em novembro de 2018. / [en] This research approaches the issue of inclusion in peace negotiations from a different angle than the one(s) usually employed by the Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) literature. This topic has been gaining increasing attention over the last few decades: while, for a long time, it was seen solely as a source of disturbance in the way of achieving political settlement, including societies is slowly becoming accepted as a necessary disturbance in the construction of legitimate agreements and durable peace. The discomfort that motivates this investigation stems from the frequent depoliticization and instrumentalization of inclusion in the context of peace negotiation and mediation. Inclusion is often treated as a benign entity aimed at cultivating legitimacy for a new political system, while its inherent political nature – the political articulations, disputes and exclusions it involves – receive little attention. It tends, therefore, to treat both the peace process and the political system under negotiation as a given, neutralizing the disputes and exclusions that are renewed or created by the political reinvention involved in a peace process. This discussion is by no means dispensable if one wants to reflect on long-term peacebuilding and conflict prevention, or even on political inclusion in general and the current crisis experienced by representative democracy. In an effort to politicize this discussion, the dissertation dissects the idea of inclusion in peace processes by analyzing it through the conceptual lens of political representation. As opposed to our contemporary tendency of considering representation merely the punctual product of periodic elections, here the concept is taken in a critical and expanded interpretation, considered in the context of its current dilemmas and its complex relationship with political participation, particularly in light of feminist democratic theory. Beyond elections and formal authorization, the research considers political representation to be possible and present in situations other than usual institutionalized settings, such as peace negotiations. A twofold strategy is thus pursued in order to address this discomfort: one, a theoretical discussion of the existing literature on inclusion, which is re-read through its interpretation as a matter of political representation; and two, an empirical observation of this debate in the context of the Colombian case, more specifically the role of women in the Havana dialogues between the government and the FARC-EP (2012-2016). This part is based both on available documentation (official declarations and reports, the peace agreements, media material, civil society reports) and fieldwork conducted in Bogotá in November 2018.

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