This doctoral thesis examines the relationship between Protestant Christianity and collective violence in rural China during the turbulent period of the late nineteenth century (1860-1900). It focuses on the creation of some Chinese Baptist and Presbyterian village communities in the prefecture of Chaozhou in Guangdong province. Set in this highly competitive and violent environment, this study singles out intra-lineage and intra-village conflicts as a key to understanding the Protestant expansion into the interior. It argues that Protestant Christianity advanced in some inland areas with a long history of rural violence. Conversion, especially of an entire lineage segment or a substantial number of villagers, often followed the pre-existing communal divisions and rivalries. When the American Baptist and English Presbyterian missions became entngled in the longstanding intra-lineage and intravillage conflicts, they added a new dimension to the competition. The missionary presence enabled the local Christians to mobilize external resources to strengthen themselves against their rivals. Apart from appealing to the missionaries for help, the Christians also took the initiative to integrate the church into the extensive kinship, lineage and territorial networks. It was through these networks that the Christians could come together to form a regional church alliance for mutual support and protection. In this process of church-building and alliancemaking, the Baptist and Presbyterian communities emerged as some kind of protective organizations and created a new balance of power in the local politics. This political nature of the Protestant movements not only fits well with David Faure's characterization of popular religious activities as "a demonstration of power" but also permits a comparison with Maurice Freedman and Hugh D. R. Baker's studies of lineage politics in southern China. This argument is tested against four incidents of collective violence. In the Zhazi (1878) and Caikou (1898) cases of intra-village disputes, the rival segments split into Christian and non-Christian factions. When the non-Christian power holders sought to get rid of a handful of Presbyterian worshippers, the Presbyterians had to rely on the English mission for help. In the Kuxi (1896) and Liugang (1897) cases of intra-lineage conflicts, the hostile lineage segments divided into the Baptist and Catholic, as well as the Baptist and Presbyterian camps. They continued to struggle against each other under the respective covers of the churches. In all the cases, the Christian communities employed conversion as a political strategy to pursue their own agendas, which were different from the religious concern of the missionaries. In this perspective, many incidents of violence involving local Christians should better be understood in the wider context of communal conflicts in southern China generally, and not just be seenas the results of anti-imperialism, anti-foreignism and cultural antagonism between Confucianism and Christianity. The violence was in fact the manifestation of factional struggles which had long predated the arrival of the Baptist and Presbyterian missions. This research has consulted a wide range of primary sources, ranging from the Baptist and Presbyterian missionary accounts to the American and British consular correspondence, and from the Chinese local magistrates' reports to some ethnographic data which was collected in several Christian villages in 1998. By supplementing the archival materials with the ethnographic data, this study has been able to probe more deeply into the inner dynamics of the Christian communities than have many current studies of Chinese Christian movements. It has also gone beyond the conventional focus on inter-group violence to explore the significance of intra-group fighting at the grass-roots level.

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This thesis is an attempt to inquire the origins of the Cyprus conflict by analyzing the historical developments that laid the ground for the inter-communal dispute in the late 1950s, while focusing on the structural dimension of the rise of ethnonationalisms in the island. The special emphasis is given to the British period 1878-1960 in the historical analysis since the ethno-religious identity consciousnesses of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities in the island started to turn into ethnonational ones and later into antagonistic nationalisms during this era. The study&rsquo / s underlying premise is that although different identity perceptions existed much earlier among the two communities of the island, the inconsistent policies of the British administration that shifted in accordance with its interests in the Mediterranean region enabled the emergence of a conducive environment for the politicization and manipulation of these diverse identity perceptions. The Greek and Turkish nationalisms gained strength in this era and gradually transformed into antagonistic nationalisms motivated by different political goals about the future of the island. These developments would be the main reason of the inter-communal violence in Cyprus that arose in late 1950s and also in the following years till the permanent territorial partition in 1974.

This thesis explores the impact of drought on communal violence, posing the research question: How does drought influence the occurrence of communal violence? Considering empirical evidence and theoretical postulations from previous research, economic grievances are introduced as a crucial factor in the causal pathway between drought and communal violence. Thus, two hypotheses are put forward to address the research question: incidences of communal violence will increase following droughts (H1), and an increase in economic grievances is associated with an increase in communal violence incidence in instances following drought (H2). The study employs a quantitative analysis utilizing climate, conflict, socioeconomic, and geographic information systems (GIS) data, employing generalizedlinear mixed models (GLMMs) in R to test the hypotheses for Kenya from 1997 to 2012. The findings indicate the inability to reject the null hypothesis for H1, suggesting no significant increase in communal violence following drought. The null hypothesis for H2 is generally not rejected, except for in one model, suggesting an association between economic grievances and communal violence 12 months following drought. While this thesis contributes to understanding the link between drought, economic grievances, and communal violence, further research is needed to explore alternative research designs, geographical contexts, and time periods.

The topic of whether resource scarcity affects conflict has for long been debated in the field  of peace and conflict studies. This study aimed to understand if there is a correlation between groundwater scarcity and communal conflict by answering the research question ‘How does groundwater scarcity affect communal violence in the Arid and Semi-Arid Land of Kenya’. The independent variable that was measured was groundwater scarcity and the dependent was communal conflict. The proposed theory of the thesis leads to the hypothesis that reads as follows: A decrease of access to groundwater will increase the communal conflicts of the group experiencing said scarcity. To test this hypothesis a Structured Focused Comparison was conducted on two dyads with two communal groups each, one that had experienced communal conflict and one that had not. The results from this analysis were that no aspects of groundwater scarcity had a correlation with an increase in communal conflict, there seemed however to be some covariation between a lack of quantity of groundwater and communal conflict. Further studies need to be conducted on the topic to determine if this co-variation is part of a bigger causal mechanism.

Understanding the conflict potential of climate variability is critical for assessing and dealing with the societal implications of climate change. Yet, it remains poorly understood under what circumstances – and how – extreme weather events and variation in precipitation patterns affect organized violence. This dissertation suggests that the impacts of climate variability on organized violence are conditional on specific climate patterns, the sensitivity of livelihoods, and state governance. These theoretical conjectures are subjected to novel empirical tests in four individual essays. Three essays investigate the relationship between climate variability and communal and civil conflict through sub-national quantitative analysis focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa. The fourth essay sheds light on causal mechanisms leading to participation in land-related conflict based on interview material on 75 ex-participants in violence from Mt. Elgon, Kenya. Essay I suggests that the exposure of vulnerable agricultural livelihoods to sustained drought increases the risk of civil conflict violence. Essay II indicates that rainfall anomalies increase the risk of communal violence, an effect which is amplified by political marginalization. Essay III finds support for the proposition that volatility in resource supply increases the risk of communal conflict over land and water in remote regions, which tend to have limited state presence. Essay IV proposes that individuals depending on agriculture are prone to participate in land-related conflict as they face impediments to leaving a conflict zone, and additionally have high incentives to partake in fighting for land. Taken together, the dissertation furthers our understanding of the specific economic and political context under which climate variability impacts armed conflict. This knowledge is important for conflict-sensitive adaptation to climate change and conflict prevention efforts.

Local Peace Committees (LPCs) have emerged as adequate infrastructures for fostering peace in conflict-affected countries. The role of LPCs in facilitating peacebuilding is recognized in countries like Kenya, Burundi and Colombia. However, a significant gap exists in our understanding of the factors that enhance LPCs' capacity to resolve pastoral communal conflicts. This thesis aims to fill this gap by addressing the question: Why are some Local Peace Committees able to resolve pastoral communal conflicts while others are not? I propose that LPCs that receive continuous external funding have an increased capacity to resolve communal conflict compared to those with limited external funding. To test this theoretical argument, I conduct a study on two LPCs in Kenya. The findings of my study provide moderate support to the hypotheses tested. I attribute this moderate support to the small sample size, methodological limitations, and other confounding variables, such as local ownership and the country's supportive political environment. This study underscores the need to investigate additional factors that contribute to the increased capacity of LPCs, such as non-financial support( training and workshops).

This thesis addresses the relationship between sectarianism and state-making and nation-building in Iraq. It argues that sectarianism has been an enduring feature of the state-making trajectory in Iraq due to the failure of the modern nation-state to resolve inherent tensions between primordial sectarian identities and concepts of unified statehood and uniform citizenry. After a theoretical excursus that recasts the notion of primordial identity as a socially constructed reality, I set out to explain the persistence of primordial sectarian affiliations in Iraq since the establishment of the modern nation-state in 1921. Looking at the primordial past showed that Sunni-Shicite interactions before the modern nation-state cultivated repositories of divergent collective memories and shaped dynamics of inclusion and exclusion favorable to the Sunni Arabs following the creation of Iraq. Drawing on primary and secondary sources and field interviews, this study proceeds to trace the accentuation of primordial sectarian solidarities despite the adoption of homogenizing policies in a deeply divided society along ethno-sectarian lines. It found that the uneven sectarian composition of the ruling elites nurtured feelings of political exclusion among marginalized sectarian groups, the Shicites before 2003 and the Sunnis in the post-2003 period, which hardened sectarian identities. The injection of hegemonic communal discourses into the educational curriculum was found to have provoked masked forms of resistance that contributed to the sharpening of sectarian consciousness. Hegemonic communal narratives embedded in the curriculum not only undermined the homogenizing utility of education but also implicated education in the accentuation of primordial sectarian identities. The study also found that, by camouflaging anti-Shicite sectarianism, the anti-Persian streak in the nation-state’s Pan-Arab ideology undermined Iraq’s national integration project. It explains that the slide from a totalizing Pan-Arab ideology in the pre-2003 period toward the atomistic impulse of the federalist debate in the post-2003 period is symptomatic of the ghettoization of identity in Iraq. This investigation of the interaction between primordial sectarian attachments and the trajectory of the making of the Iraqi nation-state is ensconced in the project of expanding the range and scope of social scientific applications of the nation-building and primordialism lines of analysis.

Under what conditions can peace be established after violent communal conflict? This question has received limited research attention to date, despite the fact that communal conflicts kill thousands of people each year and often severely disrupt local livelihoods. This dissertation analyzes how political dynamics affect prospects for peace after communal conflict. It does so by studying the role of the central government, local state and non-state actors, and the interactions between these actors and the communal groups that are engaged in armed conflict. A particular focus is on the role of political bias, in the sense that central government actors have ties to one side in the conflict or strategic interests in the conflict issue. The central claim is that political bias shapes government strategies in the face of conflict, and influences the conflict parties’ strategic calculations and ability to overcome mistrust and engage in conflict resolution. To assess these arguments, the dissertation strategically employs different research methods to develop and test theoretical arguments in four individual essays. Two of the essays rely on novel data to undertake the first cross-national large-N studies of government intervention in communal conflict and how it affects the risk of conflict recurrence. Essay I finds that conflicts that are located in an economically important area, revolve around land and authority, or involve groups with ethnic ties to central rulers are more likely to prompt military intervention by the government. Essay II finds that ethnic ties, in turn, condition the impact that government intervention has on the risk of conflict recurrence. The other two essays are based on systematic analysis of qualitative sources, including unique and extensive interview material collected during several field trips to Kenya. Essay III finds that government bias makes it more difficult for the conflict parties to resolve their conflict through peace agreements. Essay IV finds that by engaging in governance roles otherwise associated with the state, non-state actors can become successful local peacemakers. Taken together, the essays make important contributions by developing, assessing and refining theories concerning the prospects for communal conflict resolution.

Why are some areas more resilient to riots than others? The literature seems divided on whether exposure to violence affects societies to become more resilient or more vulnerable to future violence. The most supported view is that "violence begets violence", but some studies suggest that riot exposed areas could possibly develop resilience. Potential resilience would arguably be the most noticeable in times of turmoil. As India had an outbreak of riot after the 2019 national election, it constitutes a good case to study. I therefore investigate whether riot exposure makes societies more resilient to violence or not, by looking at the probability that riot exposed areas in the pre-election period, had election-related riots after the election. The current thesis tests a hypothesis suggesting that there is lower probability that areas exposed to riots in the pre-election period experience riots in the post-election period, than in areas with no riot exposure in the pre-election period. By running a Linear Probability Model, on riot data in four Indian states, containing 1099 urban observations, the results of the thesis indicate that the hypothesis is unsubstantiated. Instead, an opposite relationship appears, which gives further support to the notion that “violence”, indeed, “begets violence”.