This Master‟s thesis is the result of research conducted through field-work which has taken place in Sweden, and additionally text analysis. The aim of this study is to explore the specific case of the Colombian diaspora in Sweden, to discover the reactions, possible involvements, and motivations for involvements and/or un-involvements in relation to their homelands currently ongoing peace negotiation process. This study first seeks to understand the overall reaction and attitudes of the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden towards the peace negotiations, and then looks to provide an understanding over possible influences being exerted from the Colombian diaspora members, and why or why not there is an exert of influence/involvement. The overall understanding of how the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden react to the peace process, are involved/un-involved, and their motivations behind what they do has been discovered through the field-work conducted in this study. This field-work was conducted solely in Sweden, as to provide the specific case of the Colombian diaspora member in Sweden, through qualitative methods and has used semi-structured interviews as well as questionnaires in English and Spanish to collect the information needed to answer the aim of the research presented in this study. Through the field-work, this study has discovered strong hesitations on the Colombian diaspora member behalves to not only be involved in any form of economic, social and political means of influence towards the peace process, but to also take part in this study. The concerns presented by the Colombian diaspora members towards involvements and/or un-involvements are those of political interests, hesitations from the strong bi-polarity of the Colombian society, as well as personal security. Overall, this study has discovered that there is more support from the Colombian diaspora members in Sweden for the ongoing peace negotiations than non-support, but that very few involvements are exerted by this small population of Colombian diaspora members in Sweden.

Along with the United Nations Security Council Resolutions on women, peace and security, women’s participation in peace processes has become an increasingly popular research topic in the 2000s. However, while several authors have written on the topic, there seems to be a lack of empirical data to support the argumentation regarding women’s participation in peace negotiations and its impact on agreements and post-conflict societies. Therefore, the objective of this study is to carry out an analysis on the recent research processes that concern women’s participation in formal peace negotiations and its impact, and assess this research in terms of its validity. As the primary data used for this study consisted of scientific publications, content analysis and discourse analysis proved to be appropriate methods to collect and categorise the data. After this process the data were analysed with the help of an analytical framework based on the criteria for validity in scientific research, which was composed of four different elements credibility, transferability, reliability and verifiability. The findings regarding the validity of the research processes concerning women’s participation in peace negotiations and its impact indicated that the research lacks validity to a great extent in all four areas depicted in the analytical framework. The main issues with the past research arose within the connections made between the methods, sources and findings. In addition, it was concluded that there are indications that the scientific discourse on women’s participation is heavily influenced by the UNSC resolutions on women, peace and security, creating more advocacy research with political agenda rather than scientific studies aiming at objectivity. In other words, there are great opportunities to be taken in different areas of research to create more validity on the argumentation and thus, to generate data to support relevant mechanisms for more sustainable peace-building in regards of women’s participation in peace negotiations.

This research focuses on the opportunities and barriers of virtual peace diplomacy,examining the different aspects of this approach and analyzing its potential impact on thepeace process. In an era where conflicts have evolved into new forms of warfare, thecomplexities of mediation have intensified. Furthermore, the advent of the COVID-19pandemic, together with the widespread availability of digital tools, has transformed peacediplomacy and, therefore, the role of mediators. The research aims to discover whatinfluences the changing environment surrounding peace processes has on peace negotiationand how mediators can adapt most effectively to that environment. This will be done bylooking at all the tracks introduced by the Multi-Track Diplomacy Framework, whereby thedifference in approaches between the tracks will be highlighted. The research will provide anin-depth analysis of the complications regarding virtual trust-building in peace negotiationsin the context of Yemen. This is facilitated by previous peace attempts by the UN in Yemenand by examining the current landscape in Yemen.

<p>The objective of the thesis is to study the Sri Lankan negotiation process during 2000-2006 sponsored by the Norwegian facilitation and further to analyse the major constraints hin-dering a final solution.</p><p>The stated purpose is analysed by studying both primary and secondary materials such as official documents, research and newspaper articles. One of the major findings of the thesis is that the Norwegian facilitation has not been very effective mainly due to both domestic and international political developments in recent years. In the case of domestic politics, the Sri Lankan political arena has a tradition of political crisis which is mainly a result of the two major Sinhalese parties fighting for power. These parties have been blocking any sus-tainable solution for Tamil demands while focusing on their political power.</p><p>Furthermore, international attitudes towards the warring parties are found to have had a huge impact on the Sri Lankan peace process during the studied period. Since one of the major constraints in the negotiation process appears to be that the Government of Sri Lanka seems to have adopted the international “realpolitik” on its domestic issue in the name of the war on terror. This political strategy may further inflate the already existing na-tionalism among the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority and thus may intensify the conflict.</p>

The role of civil society in conflict resolution has moved from the margins to the core of analyses of peace processes. However, existing literature has put little attention on examining the contribution of civil society in the implementation of peace agreements in the immediate time upon their conclusion. I aim to fill this gap by asking “How does the mode of civil society inclusion during the pre-agreement stage influence the degree of civil society participation in the implementation of peace agreements?”. I argue that when civil society can directly influence the peace talks by having a seat at the negotiation table this can have downstream effects on how much they will be involved in the implementation of the agreed provisions. The research question is answered in the context of a qualitative study of the cases of the peace process in Mozambique and El Salvador, through the method of structured focused comparison. The findings do not support this expectation. The analysis rather indicates that direct participation is not enough for civil society actors to ensure continuity in their participation, and more substantive engagement and ownership might be needed.

The aim of this study is to analyse the contents in texts about the intra-Syrian peace negotiations, as well as identify latent political meanings, through examining how the sides of the war are portrayed in al-Jazeera´s coverage. Dr Zainab Abdul-Nabi suggests in her analysis of al-Jazeera´s coverage of another event in the Syrian war, namely the chemical attack in Ghouta, that al-Jazeera has a catalysing role in the Arab Spring when covering the Syrian war in particular. This study continues along those lines that Abdul-Nabi suggests by analysing the coverage of another event in the Syrian war – the UN-led intra-Syrian peace negotiations. Purposefully, this study should increase the awareness of how political meanings could be hidden in texts. The theory of agenda setting, a theory by Walter Lippman which was further developed by McCombs and Shaw, is used in this study: media set the agenda by inserting certain portraits of how things are and what the society should be concerned about. Content analysis is the method used to perform this study, following Halperin and Heath´s model. By interpreting articles from an influential media source – al-Jazeera – the analysis shows that the examined texts portray the opposition as protagonists against a brutal government, plausibly making the media source a part of the war since the texts attempt to set the agenda that a certain side is the protagonists and another is the antagonists. Underplaying the potential capacities of the peace negotiations and not compromising with the other side is evident, as well as holding the other side responsible of the hostilities in the war, in the texts, hence having a catalysing role with its coverage in the war. Also, the texts tend to leave out details concerning the other side (the government side), portraying the opposition to be representing the people..

The Political action of citizen’s individually or collectively is always determined by a multiplicity of factors: first, political socialisation; second, logic of the dominant political culture in the society; third, factors of ideological nature; forth, religious factors to name but a few. In the particular case of Mozambique it can be seen that from independence in 1975 onwards the political and religious dimension went through several changes. In the political area the changes were observed more profoundly after the independence of the country under the orientation of FRELIMO the political party in power. From that moment until 1990 the country was governed by the domination of one political party under a Marxist system of socialism. In the religious arena, the domination of the Roman Catholic Church was observed prior to independence since it was working together with the dominators (Portuguese) and other Christian religions were persecuted by this church. However, after independence another dimension became a changing force within the country. First of all the relationship between FRELIMO and the church was not good. Second, from 1982 this relationship started to take on a positive nature. The questions that then arose were the following: What are the factors that might have contributed to this changed situation? How can this dimension be explained? What are the implications of these changes? This study seeks to discuss the role played by the church and the state in the democratisation process of Mozambique. It starts by exploring the general background of Mozambique where issues such as liberation, civil wars and eventually peace negotiations are discussed. It discusses also the church and state relationship highlighting the contribution from the protestant churches towards Mozambican independence. This study discusses and explains the reasons why the church should be participating in political issues in order to build a good and decent democracy for all the people in Mozambique. Following, it demonstrates and discusses in a nutshell some of the activities undertaken by different churches who have sought collaboration with civil society and political authorities for the edification of peace, democracy, development and the wellbeing of human beings in Mozambique. It also discusses some issues both positive and negative regarding the elections that have occurred in Mozambique. Finally from the observation and analysis that has been completed, the conclusion of this study is in the form of some recommendations which will help to improve the kind of democracy that the majority of the people in Mozambique crave. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Church History and Church Policy / unrestricted

The study of civil society participation in peace negotiations has become increasingly popular. Although research has stressed the importance of coordination among civil society groups, no study has so far been conducted that studies the impact coordination among civil society groups can have on the quality of a peace agreement. This thesis aims to fill this gap by asking How does the extent of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations impact the quality of a peace agreement? Springing from the premise that civil society groups are aware of underlying conflict causes, this thesis argues that a high extent of civil society groups’ coordination leads to a highquality peace agreement and that this is particularly so when a civil society actor is facilitating the coordination. By applying the method of structured focused comparison, these hypotheses are tested on Guatemala, El Salvador, and Liberia. The empirical findings do not show support for the hypotheses. A variety of factors were discovered during the analysis that could have hampered the impact of civil society groups’ coordination or could hold alternative explanatory power and thus stress the need for further research.

The objective of the thesis is to study the Sri Lankan negotiation process during 2000-2006 sponsored by the Norwegian facilitation and further to analyse the major constraints hin-dering a final solution. The stated purpose is analysed by studying both primary and secondary materials such as official documents, research and newspaper articles. One of the major findings of the thesis is that the Norwegian facilitation has not been very effective mainly due to both domestic and international political developments in recent years. In the case of domestic politics, the Sri Lankan political arena has a tradition of political crisis which is mainly a result of the two major Sinhalese parties fighting for power. These parties have been blocking any sus-tainable solution for Tamil demands while focusing on their political power. Furthermore, international attitudes towards the warring parties are found to have had a huge impact on the Sri Lankan peace process during the studied period. Since one of the major constraints in the negotiation process appears to be that the Government of Sri Lanka seems to have adopted the international “realpolitik” on its domestic issue in the name of the war on terror. This political strategy may further inflate the already existing na-tionalism among the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority and thus may intensify the conflict.

Civil society inclusion in peace processes has been recognised to be crucial in achieving sustainable peace. The author first reviews the existing academic literature on this, before looking at how civil society, and especially civil society in non-western contexts and armed conflicts can be conceptualised. The variety of approaches and the limitations of Western actor-based concepts in non-Western contexts explains the choice of a function-based model of civil society being chosen to analyse it in the context of international peacebuilding efforts. Its involvement in formal peace processes and negotiations meanwhile is analysed using nine models of inclusion.  The case that is chosen for this exploration is Afghanistan. As a multi-facetted country with a long history of armed conflict and foreign involvement, the developments in the past two decades provide an interesting case study. The inductive desk research, using secondary data, is guided by the questions; which concept of civil society has informed the peace building process in Afghanistan in the past twenty years, how civil society in Afghanistan can be conceptualized and how this has affected the peace building process.  The findings paint a distinct picture of a country that has been shaped by armed conflict, tracing its roots back to the early days of modern Afghanistan and contrasting existing societal and political structures with Western concepts of civil society and state building. Civil society involvement is being analysed using exemplary stages of peace processes and external peace building efforts.  The research concludes that civil society inclusion has been limited by Western concepts of civil society being unfittingly applied to far more complex local realities, thereby excluding relevant actors and limiting the legitimacy and ownership of the peace process, with the prospect of peace being a long way off.