No / The victory of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation, in the January 2006 elections for the Palestinian Authority, was greeted with dismay by the international community, which responded by cutting off aid. This article seeks to understand why Hamas was elected, as well as the international community's response, through an analysis of the liberal peace thesis. This thesis states that democracies do not go to war with one another, thus it was thought that building a democratic Palestinian state would buttress the peace process. The Palestinian people have, however, elected an organization that rejects the peace process. This has provided a wake-up call for the US to face up to the fact that promoting democratization may not always produce the results it desires. The US sees the election of Hamas as the cause of the current crisis and the main obstacle to peace. This article, however, argues that this is merely a symptom, not the cause, of the crisis. The Palestinian Authority's lack of sovereignty and its complete dependence on Israel put severe limitations on the building of a viable, democratic state. The article concludes that the US's uncompromising response to Hamas could well undermine democracy promotion in the region.

In a broader sense, this thesis examines the extent to which the international community decides on the application and shape of standard security templates in post-conflict environments. These standard templates are increasingly criticized for their inflexibility and inability to adapt to the actual conditions and needs on ground. In order to alleviate this criticism, as well as improve the success of these programs, the international community recently embraced the concept of national ownership. Whether it is a rhetorical concept and political tool and how its understanding differs between theory and reality are the main topics of this thesis. Specifically, the paper analyzes the concept of national ownership in the process of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants on the example of Sudan from 2003 until 2013. Sudanese DDR process has been defined as nationally owned, but nevertheless criticized for the blind following of international standards and overall inability to adapt to the context. The objective of the thesis was set out to establish what the interpretation of national ownership was in theory and compare it with the type of ownership that had taken place in practice. The main part of this study is the analysis of the control exercised by national and...