<p> Since the end of the Cold War, recurring civil conflicts have been the dominant form of violent armed conflict in the world, accounting for 70% of conflicts active between 2000-2013. Duration and intensity of episodes within recurring conflicts in Africa exhibit four behaviors characteristic of archetypal dynamic system structures. The overarching questions asked in this study are whether these patterns are robustly correlated with fundamental concepts of resiliency in dynamic systems that scale from micro-to macro levels; are they consistent with theoretical risk factors and causal mechanisms; and what are the policy implications. </p><p> Econometric analysis and dynamic systems modeling of 36 conflicts in Africa between 1989 -2014 are combined with process tracing in a case study of Somalia to evaluate correlations between state characteristics, peace operations and foreign aid on the likelihood of observed conflict patterns, test hypothesized causal mechanisms across scales, and develop policy recommendations for increasing human security while decreasing resiliency of belligerents. Findings are that observed conflict patterns scale from micro to macro levels; are strongly correlated with state characteristics that proxy a mix of cooperative (e.g., gender equality) and coercive (e.g., security forces) conflict-balancing mechanisms; and are weakly correlated with UN and regional peace operations and humanitarian aid. Interactions between peace operations and aid interventions that effect conflict persistence at micro levels are not seen in macro level analysis, due to interdependent, micro-level feedback mechanisms, sequencing, and lagged effects. </p><p> This study finds that the dynamic system structures associated with observed conflict patterns contain tipping points between balancing mechanisms at the interface of micro-macro level interactions that are determined as much by factors related to how intervention policies are designed and implemented, as what they are. Policy implications are that reducing risk of conflict persistence requires that peace operations and aid interventions (1) simultaneously increase transparency, promote inclusivity (with emphasis on gender equality), and empower local civilian involvement in accountability measures at the local levels; (2) build bridges to horizontally and vertically integrate across levels; and (3) pave pathways towards conflict transformation mechanisms and justice that scale from the individual, to community, regional, and national levels.</p>

<p> Compassion is often misunderstood. To live with compassion does not mean to give up one&rsquo;s own well-being or to jeopardize the well-being of her family in order to serve the needs of others. Compassion means one must first take care of herself before she is able to tend to another. True compassion can exist only within the framework of well-balanced psychology or even-mindedness. It takes healthy self-esteem to realize one&rsquo;s own limits and set clear and direct boundaries to protect those limits. Compassion means being deeply human and at the same time honoring one&rsquo;s self and others. </p><p> Compassion, like muscle memory and rote memorization, is cultivated through practice. The current research from the field of neuroscience interprets compassion as a learned behavior as well as delineating that meditation is one of the most powerful tools for cultivating compassion and other balanced neurological states of being. </p><p> If we cultivated meditation, as we do reading and writing, as a part of the educational process for children from toddlers, through higher education, would that, in time change, what seems to be our addiction to the Ares archetype&mdash;war? At the very least, some students will see more compassionately, relate to life with more empathy, meet challenges with more optimism, and live with a greater sense of well-being and resilience. At best most of our children will grow up with these life affirming qualities that have power beyond measure to heighten the collective to live in a more peaceful state of consciousness. </p><p> This dissertation discusses the relationship between compassion and peace. As humanity becomes more compassionate, peace becomes a more viable state. </p>

Doctor of Philosophy / Security Studies / Andrew G. Long / This dissertation advances the study of civil war by addressing the means through which states’ police forces may affect the probability of civil war onset. I improve upon extant work on civil war and state capacity by considering the ability of police to act autonomously from the state and operate as a distinct element of the state’s security sector. The project consists of four substantive chapters. One chapter addresses the role of police capacity in preventing civil war and determines that simple measures of police strength do influence the probability of civil war onset. Also, anocracies require a greater number of police to prevent civil war. The next chapter tests whether police repression could lead to civil war by creating grievances among the populace. Tests of this hypothesis determine that while police repression can increase the probability of civil war, it is not as powerful a predictor as state repression overall. The third chapter looks at the effect of the mode of organization of police forces and contains two contrasting hypotheses. The first proposes that police force centralization increases the probability of civil war onset by increasing the likelihood that the state and police view the utility of employing repression more favorably. The other proposes that centralization reduces the probability of civil war onset by making the police more effective. Nevertheless, neither hypothesis yields significant outcomes when tested. The final chapter employs two case studies about the experience of police serving as military during a civil war. I find that in both cases, police service in what are typically military functions did tend to make the police more repressive after the war, which contributed to reoccurrence by giving dissidents a cause around which to rally and by reducing the dissidents’ perceptions of the utility of non-violent means of protest. I conclude the study with a summary of the major findings, suggestions for further study, and recommendations for policy makers.

<p> My dissertation investigates the role of women activists in the construction of peace in twenty-first century Colombia, combining a social movement studies framework with feminist, antimilitarist political economy. It is a a multi-method, feminist ethnography of three networks of women&rsquo;s peace organizations founded in Colombia in the mid-1990s: Ruta Pac&iacute;fica de Mujeres, the Movimiento Social de Mujeres Contra la Guerra y Por la Paz, and the Red de Mujeres del Caribe Colombiano. In it I show that by directing material and symbolic claims at the key structural foundations of armed conflict, women&rsquo;s peace activism is fomenting a unfying, counterhegemonic social movement voice in the country. The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first traces the history of the women&rsquo;s peace movement, and finds that it arose from a feminist movement born into armed conflict and have never had a safe space to operate. Since the 1990s the Colombian women&rsquo;s movements have been joining to form national-level networks and gaining transnational legitimacy and visibility. Nonetheless, activists continue to face persistent challenges from within and without, beyond the persistence of war: notably, the concentration of movement resources among urban elites and the exclusion of feminists of color who live in outlying regions. Despite this, my dissertation argues that women peace activists are subverting many of the presumptions inherent to Colombia&rsquo;s conflict and its longevity. In the second section, I identify four key personae on the stage of war and its discourse: confusion, victimhood, the body, and peace. I argue that each has played an important role in perpetuating and strengthening the patriarchal, militarized capital accumulation at the heart of the conflict, and that the activists under study are appropriating and reinterpreting these personae in such a way as to destabilize the foundations of war in the country. Using data gathered with several qualitative methodologies, including ethnographic observation, semistructured interviews, and archival research, I conclude that their organizing represents a potentially counterhegemonic, unifying social movement force that has the potential to play a transformative role in Colombia&rsquo;s new reality.</p>

<p>Even though women who have been abandoned by their fathers at a young age are more likely to exhibit destructive behaviors as adults, there are cases in which women develop new social skills and become successful at building new relationships (Stolberg, Complair & Wells, 1987). The main purpose for this phenomenological research wasto understand the shared experiences of Hispanic women who were abandoned by their fathers at a young age and explore their conflict management skills. This research wasguided by the following research question: What are the lived experiences of Hispanic women who were abandoned by their fathers before the age of seven? Through conducting and analyzing phenomenological interviews with 25 participants and using the lenses of attachment theory, social construct and phenomenology, this research will contribute to scholarshipin different arenas. Findings of this research used the participant?s shared recommendations and suggestions as a means for discussion to help women who were abandoned as children prevent and cope with conflict effectively. Finally,this research will help social scientists understand whether being abandoned by a father at a young age has any effects in a Hispanic woman?s conflict resolution skills.

<p> This dissertation examines the reasons behind the rise and fall of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in Somalia. The UIC was born out of the chaos of the Warlord Era in Southern Somalia from within the fabric of Somali Society. The peace and stability that the UIC brought to the region had not been seen since before the fall of Said Barre's regime. However, the rapid martial expansion of the UIC and the perceived threat caused by their success resulted in Ethiopia invading Somalia thereby destroying the UIC and spawning the al-Shabaab movement. .</p>

<p> Religiously based nonviolence varies in motive, intent and interpretation. John Howard Yoder outlines a variety of religious nonviolence in his book Nevertheless. Muslim nonviolence is not addressed in the book. Identifying a distinctly Muslim understanding of nonviolence requires an appreciation of aspects of peace building that are emphasized in Islam. Muhammad Abu-Nimer has formed a framework for identifying and encouraging nonviolence and peace building in an Islamic context. By applying the basic outlines formulated by Yoder and the framework developed by Abu-Nimer to three cases of Muslim movements of nonviolence, this paper identifies distinct variations of religious nonviolence and peace building that have been developed and practiced by Muslims. The first case is historic; the Khudai Khudmatgar sought independence from Great Britain through nonviolent demonstrations and civil disobedience. The second case puts emphasis on the peace building vision of Islam by examining a movement developed in contemporary Turkey. The followers of Said Nursi and the G&uuml;len Movement collectively support "the middle way", education in both science and religion and opportunities for dialogue as a means to build peace locally and globally. The third case of religiously based nonviolence practiced by Muslims is that of the Shi'a led movement for democratic reforms in Bahrain, which uses collective action and protests to draw attention to the need for social change. Each movement demonstrates distinct approaches to nonviolence and peace building. In each case, the leadership frames the commitment to peace in Islamic terms. And in each case those who commit themselves to the movement do so through their understanding of the way they, as Muslims, should justly relate to one another and the world. This paper demonstrates Islam's unique characteristics that have enabled Muslims to pursue a common purpose and make change in a nonviolent manner.</p>

<p> As our war veterans are growing in exponential numbers, so also are their psychic wounds in need of urgent treatment. This qualitative study explores the lives of three war veterans using a narrative-inquiry methodology, informed by their personal creations: a century-old photographic archive, a published novel, a memoire, interview transcripts, military and photography historians' accounts, and recently declassified documents in the National Security Archive of The George Washington University. The researcher addressed the questions: What are the main themes and functions of the coresearchers' self-expressive works? Can the creative process assist in restorying the lives and reconstructing the relationships of individuals? Can such works include those constructed from living memory, as well as those from the past? </p><p> Participants included World War II veteran Captain Arthur Enderlin, U.S.N.R, (deceased), former Chief, Office of Telecommunications, National Security Agency; and Vietnam War army veterans, "Harry George," Lieutenant Colonel, retired, former infantry company commander, 6/31 Infantry Battalion/9^th Infantry Division; and "Mr. Tu," regulatory policy analyst, Federal Civil Service Grade GS-15, Sergeant (E-5), Delta Company 3/187 Infantry Batallion/101st Airborne Division. </p><p> The intensive in-depth research process illuminated the creative healing journey of psyche, coconstructed by both the researcher and the participants. The relational approach and sensibility integrated Jungian analytical psychology, self-psychology, and other contemporary thought in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The outcome supports that creating and expressing "new" life narratives support (a) new self-construction born from fragments, (b) relationship construction, and (c) recovery from trauma. In their interviews and writings, the Vietnam War army veterans echoed themes from their life journeys and healing from trauma, which supported and validated those of the third coresearcher's nonverbal photographic narrative. The researcher employed visual reading and professional curating practices to reach a cohesive understanding of the life narrative of Arthur Enderlin. </p><p> The researcher combined approaches in an innovative synthesis which will be valuable to clinical and depth psychotherapists and researchers as avenues for future narrative inquiry using photographic images, writings, and creative modalities with patients and their families. The results and implications will also be accessible to individuals and groups tending to victims of diverse trauma, visual-literacy scholars, archivists, and historians. </p>

The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of structural violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls in Bulawayo. It is noted that the spread of HIV/ AIDS is high among women and girls in Bulawayo, similarly to the rest of the world. There have been a number of studies that were carried out seeking to find out what causes the spread among women, but it seems as if there has not been a substantial solution to the problem, as the rate of infection is still escalating. There has not been much work done in connection with the causes of the spread of HIV/AIDS among in Bulawayo. A qualitative method of collecting data was used; these are structured individual interviews and focus group interviews. An interview guide was designed for individual interviews, who were informants in the city working directly with affected and infected women. To complement the interviews, focus groups interviews were held with two groups of people, “Touch the Hem” (HIV) support groups and a group of commercial sex workers in the city. An interview guide was also designed for the focus group interview, based on issues that needed clarity and verification from the individual interviews. Permission was granted by individuals involved and ethical considerations of conducting the study were carefully considered. The findings of the study indicated that the spread of HIV among women is caused by high levels of concurrent sexual partners, early sex by girls with older men who are already infected with HIV, gender imbalances, commercial sex work, domestic violence, imbalances in sexual relationships, lack of health information and poverty. It was indicated by the findings of this study that some of these causes have links with structural violence. It is recommended that both men and women should be educated on health and HIV related issues, and that exploitative and unjust, cultural, political and socioeconomic structural systems should be eradicated in order to establish positive peace. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009. / HEARD Division.

<p> Mexico is not a country at peace. Despite the government's fight to restore stability, violence has erupted since 2006 in several areas of the territory. According to Vygotsky's social constructivism and to Galtung's integral perspective of peace, some elements of peacelessness are informed by values, perceptions, and conceptions about violence and peace. These topics have not been qualitatively investigated in Mexico. The purpose of this case study was to explore the process involving the social construction of values, perceptions, and conceptions in regard to organized criminal violence and peace possibilities in Mexico. Research questions focused on the role of mass media and oral conversations in the social construction of perceptions about the government, criminal organizations, and peace. This study employed semistructured interviews of 15 residents from a neighborhood in a large Mexican city. A purposeful sample stratified by gender, age, and profession, according to the neighborhood demographics, was used. Data from the interviews were coded for patterns using preexisting theory-based categories along with new emerging categories. Findings showed that among these residents, the process of social construction of perceptions was primarily formed through individual experiences and observations, and nurtured by conversations. Social constructors, such as traditional mass media, were much less important. Residents constructed their perception that the basic causes of criminal violence are rooted in the structures of the political and economic system, which, if correctly addressed, would foster peace. This study contributes to positive social change.by informing regional policymakers about the need to design local policies directed towards mediating structural and systemic transformations that are respectful of experiences and needs of citizens.</p>