Symbolic politics theory created by Stuart J. Kaufman attempts to give an explanation on what makes people engage in ethnic wars and genocide by combining some rationalist thoughts with social-psychological ideas. This study analyzes the symbolic politics theory by qualitive methods using the war in Kosovo and the peaceful declaration of independence in North Macedonia as cases selected thru strategic selection.  The result of this study shows that symbolic politics theory can help to understand what causes people to follow their chauvinist leaders into ethnic violence by referring to historical nationalistic myths with the use of symbols to create fear and hostility. The theory therefore helps to understand the sequence of events that eventually resulted in the war over Kosovo 1998-1999 thru this study. The result of this study also shows that symbolic politics theory can help to understand why the declaration of independence in North Macedonia did not result in violence or war, even though the premisses in the country where much the same to other war tourn countries in the Balkans at the time. Results show that elites in North Macedonia chose a different path to achieve independence unlike their neighbouring countries in the Balkans. By identifying the destructive ways of using symbols referring to historical myths to create fear and hostility towards another ethnic group, North Macedonia instead displayed an including path and an effort to meet the different needs of different ethnic groups within their own borders.

Stress is something that affects women throughout their lives and has a huge effect on wellbeing. The negative consequences of gender inequality make it harder for women to improve their lives and be a part of the labour market because of responsibilities with children and housework. Women experience high levels of stress, which creates a burden affecting their health. The study aims to understand how gender roles, living and working conditions affect stress and stress coping for working Kosovo Albanian mothers in Sweden and Kosovo. The main focus is to understand how work-home relations affect these women in different societies. The study is based on theories of stress, stress coping, theory of gender and determinants of health. A qualitative study was carried out with individual semi-structured interviews concentrating on the phenomenological perspective with an in-depth insight into the women's experiences. Five women living in Sweden and five women living in Kosovo were interviewed digitally. The results show that personality, working and living conditions and social and community networks affect the experience and interpretation of stress and the choice of stress coping for the women depending on the context. / Stress är något som påverkar kvinnorna genom hela livet och har en stor påverkan på hälsan. Negativa effekten av ojämlika könsroller gör det svårare för kvinnor att förbättra deras liv, vara en del av arbetsmarknaden och samtidigt ta hand om barnen och hushållsarbeten. Kvinnor upplever högre mängder av stress, vilket skapar en börda som påverkar hälsan. Syftet med studien är att förstå hur könsroller, boende och arbetsförhållanden påverkar stress och stresshantering för arbetande Kosovoalbanska mammor i Sverige och Kosovo. Huvudfokus ligger i förståelse om hur arbets- och hemförhållanden påverkar kvinnorna i dessa två olika samhällen. Studien är baserat på teorierna stress, stresshantering, teorin om genus och hälsans determinanter. En kvalitativ studie genomfördes med individuella semistrukturerade intervjuer med fokus på fenomenologisk perspektiv med en fördjupadperspektiv på kvinnornas erfarenheter. Fem kvinnor i Sverige och fem kvinnor i Kosovo var intervjuade digitalt. Resultaten visar att personlighet, arbets- och livsförhållanden och sociala och samhälleliga nätverk påverkar upplevelsen och tolkningen av stress och den valda hanteringsmetoden av kvinnorna beroende av kontexten.

Changing environment of international relations, changing conflicts character, and new threats and risks influence North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its role in international system. Clear structure of international system ended with end of bipolar division of Cold War. Unclear political equilibrium brought the question of future of NATO. Political concept that was used during Cold war was not sufficient and the Alliance stated again in front of transformation needs. Also during the Cold War the role of national security had been changing. Subject of this research is character of transformation of NATO and its adherence to theoretical premises of neoliberal institutionalism. International institutions are often subject of research in international relations. This thesis reacts on the deficiency of interest about changes and survival of institutions in literature. The thesis works with the theory of Robert O. Keohane that is rooted in the end of the Cold War but has been modified by further author's works. After basic analysis three variables were identified. These are three transformation areas - institutional development, and mission conduct. On the base of theoretical approach analysis three independent variables were added. These were - level of institutionalization, character of...

A central tenet of international law is the right to territorial integrity, a right for which states may have their reasons to interpret differently. This thesis sets out to give insights to how Russia approaches breaches to said right to territorial integrity depending on their own national interests, and how they frame said interests in the European cases of Kosovo and Crimea. This thesis uses realist, neoliberalist and constructivist lenses to shed light on this question, employing key concepts from these theories through a qualitative content analysis on documents from the United Nations Security Council as well as the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that display Russia’s position in above mentioned cases. This study reveals a change of the Russian perspective between both cases, as well as determining that Russia frames their reactions in a way that serves its own interests best.

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Many mediators exercise power across borders, facilitating talks, formulating agendas and manipulating interests of hostile parties. However, the problem of how mediators justify their use of power and how the terms of this justification legitimate mediators’ strategic conduct has not been systematically theorized and tested in the leverage literature yet. A configurational theory can provide varied combinations of mediator authority types and strategy. Two types, legal-rational authority and expert authority, will be conceptualized in relation to formulation strategy. The theory hypothesizes that an authoritative mediator’s acceptable formulation suppresses strategic bargaining and nurtures principled bargaining, propitious for agenda-based mediation success. The theory will be tested by an empirical puzzle. UN mediation on Kosovo (2005-2007) and NGO mediation on Aceh (2004-2005) have both been conducted by a directive approach but negotiations failed in the former case and succeeded in the latter. While the general co-variation supports the hypothesis from authoritative formulation, tracing the causal mechanism reveals that the theory cannot explain agenda-based mediation success in Aceh. Among other questions, a new puzzle suggests the viability of mediators’ varied speech acts as a fruitful research problem.

This study aims to provide a deeper insight on how the communication is used in capacity building and how it affects the socially constructed power structures using theories of Critical Discourse Analysis and the Public Sphere Theory. Through qualitative research methods, the data collected will position the analyzed material in the theoretical framework mentioned before. The study is conducted in co-operation with the Swedish civil society organization Olof Palme International Center, together with the Kosovar non-governmental organization Syri I Vizionit. It includes observation and analysis of the Active Citizenship project. The project relates to the CDA, as it involves the context of social and communicative structures based on the effects of capacity building on micro level.This work includes a Written Essay, based on scientific research and theories, and a Visual Representation in from of a documentary based on the topic of this essay i.e. communicative processes impact on capacity building (e.g. see appendix 7).

This study deals with sexual violence in the Kosovo conflict. Adopting a broad timeframe from 1998/99 to 2019 it analyses the discourse about sexual violence and considers the actors involved, focussing on practices of silencing and “un-silencing”. In 1998/99 international actors, particularly NATO member states, brought sexual violence into their narrative to justify military intervention. It was not until 2012, after more than a decade of silence, that conflict-related sexual violence began to be integrated into the narrative of heroism and victory in Kosovo itself. The author highlights particular turning points of the breaking of silence about wartime sexual violence when for the sake of certain political interests it came to be presented as a threat to the nation. Finally, she shows that aspects of gender hierarchization were hidden, which contributed once again to the reimposition of silence on individual survivors of sexual violence.

The author takes the 20th anniversary of the NATO intervention as a starting point to reflect on the commemorations of 24 March 1999, distinguishing three phases of memory politics: First, the Making of 24 March (1999–2000) by Slobodan Milošević, which initiated a hegemonic narrative of Serbian martyrdom; second, the Long Period of Ambiguity (2001–2014) shaped by the former democratic governments, who pursued a policy of reconciliation without questioning the one-sided memory in relation to the war in Kosovo; and third, the Return of 24 March with Aleksandar Vučić’s rise to power, which describes the 78 days of air raids as a collective trauma of Serbian society, from which, however, strength and defiance can be derived. The author shows that memory politics in Serbia today continue to focus almost exclusively on Serbian sacrifices made due to the bombing, while the war in Kosovo remains silenced.

Ce mémoire vise à nourrir une réflexion épistémologique sur l'écriture de l'histoire, notamment celle de l'histoire nationale. Cette dernière est à penser en termes d'artefacts littéraires servant la rhétorique nationaliste. Parmi les nombreux effets de texte déployés par le récit historique, il en est un qui tient à la représentation de l'autre, soit la représentation de celui qui existe en marge de l'histoire de la nation. C'est du moins ce que nous révèle l'analyse (textuelle-contextuelle) de deux récits « historiques » contemporains. Pour faire adhérer leurs lecteurs européens à leur représentation de certaines questions actuelles en (ex-) Yougoslavie (le conflit bosniaque et les relations albano-serbes au Kosovo), les auteurs exposent la « menace » que représente l'autre pour l'Europe, en le démonisant — conformément à ce qu'ils se représentent être l'imaginaire européen —, notamment par un discours « orientaliste » (au sens de Said). / Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2013