This dissertation explores the how external threat from militarized interstate disputes and interstate rivalries affect the relationship between the state and the ethnic groups within its borders. Specifically, it finds that national identity, the preservation of ethnic regional autonomy, and the formation of ethnic-based militias are all influenced by states involvement in international conflicts. In Sub Saharan Africa, discriminated groups are less likely to identify with their national identity and when the state is involved in an interstate dispute, while the rest of the country increases their likelihood to identify with the nation, discriminated groups cling to their ethnic identity. During and interstate rivalry, ethnic groups face a heightened risk of the state taking away their autonomy over a region. If the rivalry becomes too intense or the ethnic group shares kin with the rival, the ethnic group has lower chance of losing their autonomy during rivalry. Finally, ethnic minority seeking to form a militia are able to form one faster if their ethnic group is well represented in the military's rank and file or if their co-ethnics in the rank and file had combat experience in an interstate dispute were military force was used. Ethnic groups that are well represented in officer corps are less likely to have organizations with militias especially if those officers have combat experience. Using a logistic regression and Cox proportional hazard models I find a strong link between interstate conflict and ethnic politics.

Geography has been a central element in shaping conflict through the ages, and is especially important in determining which states fight, why they fight, when they fight, and more importantly, where they fight. Despite this, conflict literature has primarily focused on human geography while largely ignoring the geospatial context of ‘where' conflict occurs, or crucially, doesn't occur. Territorial disputes are highly salient issues that quite often result in militarized disputes. Terrain has been key to mitigating conflict even in the face of major variance in state capability and power projection. In this study I investigate how terrain characteristics interact with power projection, opportunity, and willingness and the impact this has across territorial disputes. Exploring terrain's interaction with these concepts and its effect among different types of conflict furthers our understanding of the questions listed above.

This dissertation examines how the state-building process relates to civil-military relations and how political influence of the military affects state's conflict behavior. By doing so, this study aims to introduce a nuanced consideration of the well-known civil-military problematique, which might be summarized as the threat the military can constitute to the polity that it is created to protect. I treat this paradox by addressing the following research questions: Why do some militaries have a qualitatively higher level of influence in politics than others? Second, how does the military's influence in politics affect a state's domestic conflict behavior? And third, how does it affect state's international conflict behavior? I develop a theory that when the military is heavily involved in the state-building process, it gains an unusual place within politics, gets itself imprinted in the DNA of the state, and gains undue political power. I name such militaries as state-builder militaries and argue that such states experience qualitatively different civil-military relations, in which the military acts as an extremely Praetorian institution. I argue that state-builder militaries would be able to insulate their political power from the democratization process that the country might experience and behave as persistent interveners in politics. I also argue that state-builder militaries would not want to retreat to their barracks as easily as predicted by the mainstream literature on military regimes. These arguments also contribute to the state-building scholarship. I present this theory by process-tracing the Turkish Military's longstanding political influence over the last 150 years. For my second and third research questions, I look at the price states pay when their militaries have undue influence on political decision-making. I argue that secessionist movements will be deterred from the military's political power and would refrain from engaging in violent secessionist strategies. I also contend that politically powerful militaries would be associated with a higher likelihood of interstate conflict initiation over territorial disputes. I find empirical support for these arguments by using large-N quantitative time-series cross-sectional research designs. The theory developed in this study regarding the impact of state-builder militaries on political development has important theoretical implications for the existing scholarship on civil-military relations, state-building, and democratization. Similarly, my findings regarding the relationship between political influence of the military and domestic and interstate conflict behavior of the state call for a nuanced consideration of the military-conflict nexus. The arguments developed in this study and its empirical findings also have policy implications regarding the political roles of the military, secessionist conflict, and interstate conflict over territorial disputes.

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abstract: Speculation regarding interstate conflict is of great concern to many, if not, all people. As such, forecasting interstate conflict has been an interest to experts, scholars, government officials, and concerned citizens. Presently, there are two approaches to the problem of conflict forecasting with divergent results. The first tends to use a bird’s eye view with big data to forecast actions while missing the intimate details of the groups it is studying. The other opts for more grounded details of cultural meaning and interpretation, yet struggles in the realm of practical application for forecasting. While outlining issues with both approaches, an important question surfaced: are actions causing interpretations and/or are the interpretations driving actions? In response, the Theory of Narrative Conflict (TNC) is proposed to begin answering these questions. To properly address the complexity of forecasting and of culture, TNC draws from a number of different sources, including narrative theory, systems theory, nationalism, and the expression of these in strategic communication. As a case study, this dissertation examines positions of both the U.S. and China in the South and East China Seas over five years. Methodologically, this dissertation demonstrates the benefit of content analysis to identify local narratives and both stabilizing and destabilizing events contained in thousands of news articles over a five-year period. Additionally, the use of time series and a Markov analysis both demonstrate usefulness in forecasting. Theoretically, TNC displays the usefulness of narrative theory to forecast both actions driven by narrative and common interpretations after events. Practically, this dissertation demonstrates that current efforts in the U.S. and China have not resulted in an increased understanding of the other country. Neither media giant demonstrates the capacity to be critical of their own national identity and preferred interpretation of world affairs. In short, the battle for the hearts and minds of foreign persons should be challenged. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication Studies 2017

Although the topic of international mediation has been debated frequently amongst academic scholars, most literature has failed to address the notion of threat perception. This thesis examines the impact of threat perceptions from ideational and material force on the prospects for successful international mediation. In this comparative case study, I argue that threat perception is an influential factor conditioning the road towards peace agreements, by examining one case of failure and one case of success in international mediation of interstate conflicts. The first case in the comparison consists of the conflict between Armenia-Azerbaijan in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where the OSCE Minsk Group has conducted mediation efforts. The second case examined is the conflict between Israel-Egypt which predominately have been mediated by the US. A conflict which ending was marked by the Camp David Accords in 1978 and resulted in a peace treaty the year after. The analysis shows that threat perception is indeed a factor of importance for outcome in relation to international mediation. Compared to previous research largely focused on material factors, the result shows that ideational factors should be considered to the same extent and are influential in both cases. This contribution to the field of war studies and international mediation literature also reflects the interconnectivity between threat perceptions from ideational and material force. An insight which I argue is pivotal for the comprehension of why some interstate conflicts appear to be resistant to resolution.

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This thesis draws on the climate-conflict research field to explore the question how does climate variability affect interstate conflict? This thesis contributes to various gaps in previous research by studying interstate conflict while most climate-conflict research investigates internal conflict, by using a new operationalization of climate variability as sea ice extent, and by studying an understudied case, the Arctic region. The theoretical argument consists of two parallel processes, a background mechanism focused on long-term climate change and a main mechanism focused on short-term climate variability. Increased climate variability is theorized to increase access to rivalrous resources, thereby increasing their saliency and leading to interstate competition. This increases each state’s utility of fighting, increasing the risk of bargaining failure and hence interstate conflict. The background mechanism theorizes that increased climate change will increase the risk of commitment problems, thereby contributing to bargaining failure and interstate conflict. I test the hypothesis that decreased sea ice extent increases the likelihood of militarized interstate incidents through a large-N quantitative study. Overall, the findings are inconclusive but with a low degree of support for the hypothesis.

The research issue of this diploma thesis is a civil war. The main aim is to uncover mechanisms that form a logical chain reasons - mechanisms - indicators. The work is composed of a theoretical research and 2 case studies (Sudan, Georgia). A list of general indicators of CW is included. Our of a comples analysis of a civil war there's a main emphasis on previous context and reasons.

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