This thesis seeks to analyse military and civilian loss from violence during contemporary armed conflict in order to facilitate understanding of the evolution of war and its impact on human behaviour. It comprises four chapters; the first two concentrate on the 2033 Iraq War whilst the last two are focused upon global armed conflict during the recent past. Chapter 1 explores how and to what extent military deaths during the Iraq war affect US domestic opinion, proxied by various poll questions concerning war-related issues. Having addressed irregular frequencies of poll data that restrict time series application, this chapter renders a fresh perspective on casualty-opinion research, suggesting that cumulative military casualties prior to the poll did not have an immediate effect on the poll respondents' opinion regarding the continuation of military actions in Iraq, Instead, respondents are influenced by marginal casualty information from the previous time period, implying a slow adjustment in forming opinion through the Error Correction Mechanism (ECM). Chapter 2 presents a comparative analysis to gauge any different standards between the US department of Defense and the media in counting violent civilian deaths during the Iraq war. In spite of substantial discrepancies during the initial period of the war, non-parametric tests corroborate that the US military authority and media reports had a non-differential approach towards counting violent civilian deaths during the war period across the spatial and spatiotemporal dimensions. However, the conspicuously conservative count by the US military authority during the initial stage of the war may have hindered the US forces' ability to predict and prepare for the subsequent escalation of violence that brought about large-scale human loss as well as the prolongation of the war which lasted more than 7 years. Chapter 3 analyses to what extent warring actors intentionally used lethal force against civilians, through the employment of a Civilian Targeting Index (CTI), a newly invented measure to indicate the intensity of civilian targeting for each actor. Building upon Chapter 3, Chapter 4 further examines factors that lead to warring actors targeting civilians as opposed to engaging in battle with war combatants. A dynamic panel approach shows that an increase in the degree of civilian targeting in the previous year further intensified civilian targeting in the current year for the actors involved in prolonged armed conflict.

This thesis aims to explain the role of media reports in the situation of wars and conflicts where the Ukrainian/Russian war will be the focus. Since the Ukrainian war has become the most global political debate worldwide because it has transferred from a national crisis to a geopolitical conflict, it becomes necessary to observe how different media has portrayed this war. It is a comparative desk study based on the discourse analysis method. The methodological framework is qualitative research because it seeks after a specific war by collecting and analysing different sources. The comparative research design gives depth answers to the four research questions identified. The discourse analysis method uses the collected news articles from two online newspapers, Al Jazeera and the Guardian. The first one is written in Arabic and the second one in English, giving a comprehensive view of the Ukrainian/Russian war. The selected news articles are limited to only the first week of the war because of the intensive reports presented by the media to understand the reason behind the war. The thesis uses abductive reasoning, while the securitization theory is used as the theoretical framework to highlight how the Ukrainian/Russian war has been securitized in different contexts. The results show that Al Jazeera and the Guardian have portrayed the war differently; the selected news articles from the Guardian have succeeded in a securitization process where it considered the Ukrainian/Russian war a threat to western security that has pushed the government leaders to security acts. On the other hand, the Arab media portrayed the Russian invasion as a security threat to Ukraine’s presence.

Paix et sécurité en Afrique conditionnent la durabilité de la coopération sino-africaine et préoccupent les pays membres de la Francophonie. La récurrence des conflits freinant le décollage des pays africains engage les acteurs internationaux de différentes natures, États-nations comme organisations internationales. Chine et Francophonie contribuent de manière différente au processus de paix en Afrique francophone. Malgré les écarts existant entre leurs visions et entre leurs approches, des complémentarités sont explorées dans la consolidation de la paix, dont la multi-dimensionnalité exige l’implication d’acteurs divers. La consolidation de la paix représente également un prisme pertinent pour observer l’évolution de la diplomatie chinoise et les particularités de la Francophonie comme organisation transnationale. Mettre l’une sous le regard de l’autre nous permet de mieux examiner les singularités et les similitudes de leurs perceptions et leurs mécanismes d’action. De quelles manières Chine et Francophonie s’impliquent-elles dans la consolidation de la paix ? Comment abordent-elles les notions de paix et de conflits dans leurs réflexions ? Comment les Africains perçoivent-ils leurs approches respectives ? Ces interrogations conduisent à exploiter les pensées chinoises et les courants théoriques occidentaux, sans oublier les réalités et les attentes africaines révélées par les entretiens de terrain. / Peace and security in Africa both condition the durability of Sino-African cooperation, a reason for concern to the member-states of IOF. Recurring conflicts hinder the take-off of African countries, and demand the commitment of international actors of various kinds, nation states as well as IGOs. China and IOF both contribute to the peace process in French-speaking Africa in different ways. Beyond the gap in their respective visions as well as their approaches, thinking should be elaborated about complementarities in peace-building, the multi-dimensional characteristics of which require involvement by diverse actors.The peace-building process provides a relevant prism for studying changes in Chinese diplomacy, and the specific features of IOF as a transnational organization. Submitting them to mutual scrutiny gives us keener insights on the peculiarities and similarities in their perceptions and operative mechanisms.How China and IOF do they engage in the peace-building? How do they approach the notions of peace and conflicts in their own representations? How do the Africans perceive their respective approaches? This inquiry is correlated to the best of Chinese thinking and Western theoretical trends, without forgetting African realities and expectations as evidenced through our field interviews. / 非洲和平与安全问题是中非合作持久发展的前提条件，也是法语国家组织成员国的共同忧患。反复爆发的冲突成为非洲国家崛起的障碍。这使民族国家和国际组织积极介入其中。中国和法语国家组织以不同方式为非洲法语国家和平进程作出贡献。建设和平的多维性需要不同行为体的介入, 它们的视角和方案虽有所差别，但我们有必要对其政策的互补性进行研究。建设和平不仅为我们的研究提供了观察中国外交政策演变的独特视角，而且充分体现了法语国家组织作为跨国际组织的特殊性。通过中国与法语国家组织的换位分析，我们能更有效地审视它们认知层面和行动机制的特点，同时凸显出两者的共通之处。非洲国家冲突的根源有哪些？建设和平的关键是什么？中国和法语国家组织如何介入其中 ? 它们怎样解读和平与冲突的概念？如何看待民主与发展的关联性？如何定义在非洲法语国家建设和平政策的重点？非洲政府与民众对其政策有何看法？为了思考这些问题，我们以中国传统与现代思想和西方理论流派为分析工具，以非洲实地采访作为研究支撑，进行深入探讨。