Thesis (Ph.D.). / Written for the Graduate Program of Art History and Communication Studies [Communications Graduate Program]. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/01/12). Includes bibliographical references.

Post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq started in 2003 following the military invasion by the Coalition of Willing forces. Since 2003, numerous actors have involved themselves in Iraq’s peacebuilding including governments, NGOs, the UN and the international financial institutions. Also, various activities and actions have been implemented in the humanitarian, political and economic domains. Today, all the indicators show that the country still faces the challenges of conflict, chaos as well as weak social and economic development. Many scholars attribute that to the deteriorating security conditions, which raises the questions of why does the country still face insecurity and why has peace not been consolidated? This research examines the impact of donors’ conditionality on post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq. As the liberal peace is the basis of contemporary practice of peacebuilding, this research draws on the liberal peace theory as a point of departure. The Liberal peace is used as theoretical lenses in order to understand donors’ strategies and arguments in the context of Iraq, according to two main themes, political and economic transition. Overall, this research finds that the donors’ policy packages focused on how to build liberal democratic and a free market state. Donors, primarily the US, aimed at enhancing their control over the political process and formed the political structures according to their interests foremost and not according to the public will. The local community has not been adequately engaged or consulted. Also, transforming Iraq into a free-market economy by relying on the private sector to stimulate economic growth and restricting the role of the state while the country faces security problems has led to weak outcomes in all social and economic sectors.

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.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 279-292). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Religion, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

The creation of durable peace following armed conflicts has been widely researched from a variety of perspectives. There is much less research, however, concerning when and why mediation can produce durable peace because most mediation research focuses on achieving a short-term success as indicated by the creation of a new peace agreement. This is an exploratory study which examines several factors considered to be important for the creation of durable peace. This study finds that the two most important factors are the power dynamics between the parties and the management of spoilers. Moreover, this study finds that these two factors are interlinked inasmuch that changes to the parties' levels of power can facilitate the emergence of spoilers. These findings are based on the systematic examination of mediation in four cases of armed conflict by utilizing a modified contingency model of mediation which is tested against the mediations conducted in the 1973 Egyptian-Israeli war, the Bosnian war, the third Angolan war, and the first Chechen war. This study argues that a well-designed agreement can shift the power dynamics between the parties so that their struggle for power will not take violent forms, and it can help prevent the emergence of new spoilers because it does not favor one party more than the other. Well designed agreements can be created even when the balance of power between the parties is unequal, and efforts to further weaken the already weaker party should be avoided because it can contribute to the emergence of spoilers from within the disputing parties. An original model for durable peace which accounts for these new findings is then developed. This model argues that to create durable peace mediators must produce good agreements that are balanced and channel the struggle for power into nonviolent mechanisms and processes, and manage the spoilers who threaten the peace.

Thesis (M.S.)--George Mason University, 2008. / Vita: p. 130. Thesis director: Andrea Bartoli. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Mar. 17, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-129). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

An important focus of peacebuilding as a part of post-conflict reconstruction is the provision of basic needs. Peacebuilding is a move from war to a peaceful future. Peacebuilding rests on the premise that provision of people’s needs eliminates unrest and lawlessness that arise due to war. This in turn prevents a relapse into war. Also, communities that experience war lose many years and tend to develop at slower rates than peaceful areas, if at all they do develop. The twenty year old war in Northern Uganda has caused a gap between this area and the rest of the country. Poverty has left many unable to provide basic needs. Peacebuilding efforts have been undertaken by Non Governmental Organizations, Community Based Organizations, Government of Uganda as well as people in the community organizing themselves into groups to enable them reconstruct their lives. Efforts are being made towards reconstruction, resettlement, reconciliation and providing relief in an effort to move from war and destruction. In many societies, women are left out, marginalized and discriminated against as a result of patriarchy. Their roles in peacebuilding are not considered important and they face many challenges in their efforts to rebuild their lives and families. This research focused on the challenges faced by women in Gulu, a district in the Northern region of Uganda in peacebuilding. Through conducting face to face interviews, and consulting documents available to the public, the researcher collected information about the challenges faced by the Acholi women, the women of Gulu district.

Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a surge in post-war stabilisation, reconstruction and development operations around the world. Externally driven efforts have been shaped by the liberal peace framework, which assumes that a rapid transmission or imposition of neo-liberal norms and values, combined with Western-style governance institutions, would create conditions for lasting peace and prosperity. Only in a few instances countries have attempted internally driven post-war reconstruction and development; in most cases, these efforts were either ignored or suppressed by international analysts, experts, academics and organisations. Despite all the expertise and funding spent since the early 1990s, externally driven operations have not led to lasting peace and stability, establishment of functioning institutions, eradication of poverty, livelihood improvements and economic reconstruction and development in war-torn countries. All too often, programmes, policies and „solutions‟ were designed and imposed by external actors either because they worked elsewhere or because they were influenced by geopolitical, economic and/or security interests of powerful countries. Furthermore, external actors have tended to assume that generic approaches based on the liberal peace framework can work in all places, while ignoring local actors, contexts and knowledge. Focusing on Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Sudan and Somaliland, this exploratory qualitative study critically explores and assesses both externally and internally driven post-war reconstruction and development practices and operations in order to understand the strengths and shortcomings of both approaches and offer recommendations for future improvements. This is important since socio-economic recovery and economic development are crucial for lasting stability and peace in post-war countries.