O objetivo geral desta tese, composta por três artigos, é analisar as causas da criminalidade. As análises são feitas sob a ótica da Economia do Crime. Os dois primeiros artigos são independentes, mas complementares. Neles se busca lançar luz sobre as possíveis causas da queda do crime na cidade São Paulo. A ênfase recai na política de desarmamento dos cidadãos, no desempenho da Polícia e nas condições econômicas, em particular do mercado de trabalho. No primeiro deles, o objetivo é avaliar o efeito do Estatuto do Desarmamento sobre a criminalidade letal. Para isso foram utilizados dados de séries temporais da cidade de São Paulo na aplicação de uma metodologia de análise de intervenção. A hipótese de que a política de desarmamento causou redução na taxa de crimes letais não é rejeitada. Partindo dessa evidência, no segundo artigo o principal objetivo é investigar possíveis causas da significativa redução da criminalidade na cidade de São Paulo. Por meio de uma análise de cointegração evidenciaram-se relações de longo prazo entre crime, atividade econômica e desempenho da Polícia. Os resultados indicam que a taxa de crimes letais é positivamente relacionada ao desemprego, negativamente relacionada ao salário real e negativamente relacionada aos resultados das atividades de polícia, especificamente prisões e apreensão de armas de fogo. Ademais, não é rejeitada a hipótese de que o Estatuto do Desarmamento causou redução na taxa de crimes letais, reforçando a conclusão feita no primeiro artigo desta tese. No terceiro artigo, o foco das análises passa a ser os determinantes do risco de vitimização criminal. O objetivo é investigar os efeitos da riqueza dos indivíduos no risco de serem vítimas de crimes contra a propriedade, em particular crimes de furto/roubo a residência e furto/roubo a pessoa. Em termos específicos, o intuito é investigar se a relação entre risco de vitimização e riqueza pode ser descrita por uma parábola com concavidade voltada para baixo. São utilizados os dados de duas pesquisas domiciliares de vitimização realizadas na cidade de São Paulo na estimação de modelos probit. Os resultados das estimações indicaram que a riqueza dos indivíduos é um dos determinantes do risco de vitimização criminal a propriedade. Ademais, evidenciou-se que o risco de vitimização cresce com a riqueza, mas atinge um ponto de máximo, a partir do qual se reduz para níveis de riqueza mais elevados. / This three-article PhD thesis aims to investigate the causes of crime using an economic approach. The first two articles are independent, but complementary. In these articles, the objective is to shed light on possible causes of reductions in the crime rate in Sao Paulo city, focusing on the citizen disarmament policy, police performance, economic conditions and, particularly, the labor market. In the first article, the objective is assessing the effect of the Disarmament Statute on lethal crime rates. For this purpose, we used time-series data for Sao Paulo city in applying an intervention analysis methodology. The hypothesis that the disarmament policy led to a decline in the lethal crime rate is not rejected. Based on this evidence, the main objective of the second article is to investigate possible causes for the significant reduction observed in crime rates in Sao Paulo city. By applying a cointegration analysis, we observed long-run relationships between crime, economic activity and police performance. The results indicate that the lethal crime rate is positively related to unemployment and negatively related to real wages and to the results of law-enforcement activities, specifically arrests and seizure of firearms. Moreover, the hypothesis that the Disarmament Statute led to a reduction in the lethal crime rate is not rejected, reinforcing the conclusion arrived at in the first article of this thesis. In the third article, the focus of the analysis shifts to the determinants of criminal victimization. In this study, the objective is to investigate the effects of the wealth of individuals on the risk of becoming victims of property crimes, particularly crimes of theft/robbery of residence and theft/robbery of person. Specifically, its aim is to investigate whether the relationship between wealth and victimization risk can be described by a concave down parabola. Data from two household surveys on victimization held in Sao Paulo were used to estimate probit models. It became evident that the wealth of individuals is one of the determinants of victimization risk. And it was found that criminal victimization risk increases with wealth, but that it reaches a maximum point from which it decreases as wealth levels increase.

Nuclear weapons are the key element of the security policy of the United States of America since 1945. Since then, nuclear weapons and related nuclear threats were part of a social discourse of the United States. This thesis examined how these threats were socially constructed within the discourse by individual actors. Then, by discoursive analysis, the thesis investigated how the nuclear disarmament discourse responded to these identified threats. The study focused on how these identified threats and the nuclear disarmament discourse influenced each other in each period and how they impacted following periods. This diploma thesis examined the U.S. nuclear discourse while using a methodological framework of discoursive analysis. The diploma thesis operated with the theory of securitization and determined key moments, when particular threat was designated as existential to the security of the United States and when, eventually, this threat subsided.

The world has been concerned with the problem of nuclear disarmament since their first use in 1945, as they represent a consistent danger to all humankind. Effects of use or mere failure of technical facilities cannot be limited only to combatants. On the contrary, it is certain that in such case an overwhelming number of people would die and suffer. Apart from that, environment and infrastructure would be devastated, there would be serious climate changes and other catastrophical consequences. No country in the world is ready to face such a situation and to react adequately, especially when its economy has been severely harmed. Possible consequences of the use of nuclear weapons are addressed in the first chapter of this thesis. Second chapter explores already achieved level of legal regulation in areas of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. In the third chapter the process of creation of Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons from 2017, which aims at total elimination of nuclear weapons, is mapped in detail. Text of the Treaty itself including its flaws is analysed in chapter four. Following chapter five explains, why Treaty must be perceived "only" as a framework agreement, and goes through suggested provisions, which were not included in the final text. Chapter six is dealing with the matter of...

In 1936 the founders of PAX aimed at 'resistance to modern warfare on grounds of traditional morality'. Believing that 'just war' criteria could no longer be met, they called themselves pacifists. Although most members were Roman Catholic Pax did not claim to be a 'Catholic society' because the RC Church at that time took an opposing view, particularly of conscientious objection. Church authorities attempted to censor Pax literature and instructed clergy to resign from the society. Pax supported conscientious objectors during the Second World War. When membership declined afterwards it continued to publish the Pax Bulletin and to provide a forum where Catholics could debate theological and practical questions of war and peace. By the 1960s Pax had gained some distinguished sponsors and a branch in the United States - support which enabled it to influence debate at the Second Vatican Council in 1965. The Council endorsed the right to conscientious objection. In 1971 Pax merged with Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace organisation which began in France in 1944/45. This is the first detailed historical study of the Roman Catholic element in the British peace movement. The story of Pax demonstrates the part that even a small pressure group can play in changing public opinion through patient work. Eventually, despite apathy and opposition, Pax helped bring the RC Church to a recognition of the right to conscientious objection and played a crucial role in the development of a more widespread peace movement within the Church

The level of brutality and violence against children abducted and forcefully conscripted by the Lord¿s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda pricked the conscience of humanity. The suffering of the people in northern Uganda was described by Jan Egeland, the former United Nations Under- Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, as ¿the biggest forgotten humanitarian crisis in the world¿. This study is primarily concerned with the plight of child soldiers in northern Uganda and how their effective reintegration and rehabilitation (RR) could lead to successful peacebuilding. The study is premised on the hypothesis that ¿the promotion of the RR of former child soldiers by providing psychosocial support based on traditional and indigenous resources may contribute to conditions of peace and stability in northern Uganda.¿ The main contribution of this research is that it explores the relevance of psychosocial support based on the traditional and indigenous resources to the RR of child soldiers and peacebuilding of war-torn societies. Psychosocial support based on traditional and indigenous resources as an element of peacebuilding has been the neglected element of peacebuilding by the liberal peacebuilding interventions in most war-torn societies. For example, while traditional and indigenous resources in northern Uganda have been instrumental in the RR of former child soldiers, most scholars and policy makers have largely paid attention to the usual official government and United Nations structured top-down interventions that emphasize Western approaches of peacebuilding. More so, the official approaches have tended to marginalize the plight of former child soldiers in the reconstruction and peacebuilding of northern Uganda. Yet, failing to pay sufficient attention to effective RR of child soldiers could undermine the peace dividends already achieved in northern Uganda. The study also analyses the limitations of psychosocial support based on traditional and indigenous resources in the RR of former child soldiers. It further examines why Western approaches of psychosocial support in the RR of child soldiers have remained in use in spite of the criticisms levelled against them. The study examines other peacebuilding interventions, both official and unofficial, that have been implemented in northern Uganda. In terms of key findings, the study establishes that traditional and indigenous resources are still popular and have been widely used in northern Uganda in the RR of child soldiers. Majority of former child soldiers who were interviewed observed that they found traditional and indigenous resources more helpful than the Western models of psychosocial support. However, it was also established that there is a significant section of former child soldiers who found Western models more relevant in their RR processes. Based on these findings, the study recommends an integrative and holistic model of psychosocial support that blends good elements from both traditional and indigenous resources and Western approaches with greater emphasis on the former. / Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE)

This paper examines the inter-relationships in post-conflict contexts between DDR programmes and processes on the one hand, and wider arms management and SALW control programmes on the other. It is a contribution to the international project "on DDR and Human Security: Post-conflict security building and the interests of the poor‟, and aims to complement the four other Thematic working papers of this Project. It argues that greater co-coordination, and often integration, between DDR and civilian arms management/reduction programmes is needed to promote human security in most countries emerging from conflict, within the framework of a wider comprehensive strategy for enhancing security from fear and violence that also includes security sector reform.

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This thesis conducts an analysis of the Intersessional Process (ISP) of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) between 2001 and 2006. Specifically, it aims to assess the extent to which the ISP has resulted in progress towards strengthening the BTWC. The fulfilment of the research aim is derived from three discrete approaches: firstly, an assessment of problems and weaknesses faced by the Convention; secondly, an assessment of common or converging understandings around measures to respond to such problems and weaknesses; and thirdly, an assessment of what effective action has been achieved between 2001 and 2006. To achieve this, this thesis uses a framework that structures the assessment around four dimensions of the BTWC and their evolution within a changing geostrategic and scientific context. The four dimensions identified are compliance, development, institutional and research. The conclusions drawn from this thesis suggest that although the compliance dimension has made some considerable progress in the area of national legislation and biosafety and biosecurity, it remains clear that other areas of the compliance dimension remain underdeveloped and deeply divisive. The development dimension has also made progress over the course of the ISP and, significantly, achieved much greater convergence in its focus around disease surveillance and detection. However, changing dynamics in security and science have negatively affected other areas of the development dimension. In terms of the institutional dimension, there has been a modest progress with regard to the BTWC's institutional and procedural evolution; however, legitimate concerns remain in relation to quantity and quality of membership of the BTWC relative to other agreements. Finally, there has been some motion towards the emergence of a more coherent dimension of research; although certain advances in science research remain neglected in the BTWC forum, and the issue of biodefence has been conspicuously absent from discussion during the ISP. Based on the analysis conducted, this thesis argues that the BTWC has made cautious progress over the course of the ISP, and there is evidence of a convergence in responses and effective action in some areas. However, there is insufficient evidence to suggest there has been 'major progress towards strengthening the Convention' and many issues require much greater attention.

The goal of this thesis was to map historical progress of disarmament agreements between Russian Federation and The United States of America from the end of the World War II, through the Cold War and ending in the present, formulated by the latest agreement NEW START made in 2010. This period of time includes rounds of negotiations about SALT, SALT II, INF agreement, through START I, START II, which never came in effect, ending with NEW START. Thesis is analyzing agreements not only via itself agreement's lines or proposals but also with their negotiations that led to formation of the agreements including brief historical background in which they were formatted. Rather bigger attention in this thesis is dedicated to the NEW START agreement which gained experience from past agreements. Thesis is divided into 5 chapters where the first chapter is dealing with theoretical delimits of terms which are necessary for sufficient understanding of the textual mater of these agreements. Other chapters are designed so that after every short introduction of the historical background is following analysis of the agreements or their particular links and their comparison with the previous agreements. Last chapter is focused on the issues about controlling the fulfillments of the agreements under the agreements...

The diploma thesis named "Nixon-Brezhnev Summits in 1973 and 1974 in Czechoslovakian Press" deals with the presentation of summits between Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon in contemporary Czechoslovakian dailies. It analyzes texts published by the media concerning the meetings in 1973 and 1974 in Washington and Moscow in the set period of more than one month around the meetings. Not only does the thesis research the degree of bias of the media content due to the ideological inclination towards the Soviet Union. It also analyzes the way in which the media in Czechoslovakia dealt with the presentation of both the enemy superpowers as partners. The theory part provides in introduction of the topic and basic historical context of the events. Furthermore it characterizes the respective meetings and the analyzed dailies. The practical part covers detailed qualitative content analysis of the selected representatives of the contemporary Czechoslovakian press, namely Rudé právo, Svobodné slovo, Mladá fronta and Lidová demokracie. Then the thesis compares the presentation of the respective summits and attempts to find the causes of the differences and trends in the in the presentation. As an addition the thesis also provides a comparison with similar meetings between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev,...