ABSTRACT This study sets out the understanding of the type of reconciliation approach used in Somalia, the participating leaders’ understanding, attitudes and actions towards the reconciliation as well as the role of civil society involved in the reconciliation in Somalia. the study used a qualitative abductive desk research methodology. The results based on secondary data drawn from the literature while the analysis has been used on John Paul Lederaches’ reconciliation approaches pyramid. The main findings explain that one level approach of reconciliation has been employed in Somalia, the former leaders' understanding, attitudes and actions have contributed to deepen the conflict, while the current leader's understanding, attitudes and actions seems to help promote national reconciliation in the country and the civil society role has been gradually mounting as the country has been under post conflict peacebuilding. The study identified three main issue are among the determinants of the reconciliation failure in Somalia firstly Somali protracted conflict would not have resisted if for example, the UN and international community had learned from the successful pragmatic reconciliations in the country. Secondly, it was also noted that as long as the supremacy of the clan politics continued, the role of civil society especially women would be compromised. And finally, the risk of reconciliation is greater in the involvement of the unscrupulous leaders.

There is an incredible plethora of research studies on Peace Operations, Peacebuilding, and Statebuilding Studies; however, the literature on the deployment of neighbouring forces in peacekeeping operations has not been as broad as in-depth as other studies. This thesis aims to contribute to intervention theories, especially when the neighbouring countries play a specific part. Thus, the thesis aims at closing specific theoretical and empirical gaps. In so doing, this thesis looks momentarily at the roles played by the colonial past's effects at the birth of the Somali state. However, the thesis compounds' main theoretical focus on examining the concept of peace and conflict theories and empirically analysing regional interventions, particularly Kenya's intervention into Somalia militarily and the UN adaptation of resolution 2036(2012) and its impact on Somalia’s peacebuilding and statebuilding efforts.

This thesis is a poststructural policy analysis, following the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) approach developed by Carol Bacchi (2016), of the Afghanistan Study Group final report: A Pathway for Peace in Afghanistan. Following the theoretical basis proposed by this method, the report is examined for discourses and power relations that construct the problem representation. The discourses identified of liberalism and ‘just war’ theory are shown to saturate the Afghanistan Study Group’s (ASG) report and can be traced through time, displayed by a genealogy of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (SCFR) hearings that took place between September, 11th, 2001 up until the ASG report was commissioned in 2019. It is argued that the peace recommendations and the analysis they are based upon are produced by the politicians and experts under a Western lens that perpetuates an Orientalist problem representation. The proposed lens, inspired by postcolonial theory, is argued to not only permeate the ASG report but also the mainstream peacebuilding discourse, among other fields which pertain to, and ultimately get in the way of, finding a pathway to peace.

After independence from the Soviet Union Tajikistan fell into civil war in 1992. The armed conflict ended in 1997 after a peace agreement had been signed between the warring parties. Since, Tajikistan has become increasingly authoritarian, and experts have predicted the renewed onset of war. Yet, peace has been kept for over 20 years. Within peace and conflict research, scholars have turned attention to illiberal ways of ending conflict and building peace. Can two of the concepts from this illiberal turn, illiberal peacebuilding and authoritarian conflict management (ACM), explain the Tajik peace? With the ACM framework as the starting point, this thesis introduces the distinction between containment and termination from the illiberal peacebuilding concept to capture variation. Focus is on how the Rahmon regime attempts to (re)establish control over the ACM domains of discourse, space and economics to manage conflict and build peace in the immediate aftermath of civil war. The results demonstrate how ACM functions in the absence of violence, that there is no linear relationship between violence and termination methods, and that containment first, termination second is often opted for. Two improvements are suggested for the ACM framework. First, that a legal domain is introduced, and second, that the distinction between containment and termination is applied to future research, as it has proven useful in capturing variation. The results suggest that the indicators that supposedly point to a failure of peacebuilding in Tajikistan is in fact indicative of how the peace proliferates. However, violence continues to occur, even though the peace has lasted for two decades. Could this present us with a paradox of peace – one that is simultaneously durable and instable?

The roles of women and religion in peacebuilding have been subjects of extensive research in recent years. Scholarly evidence has underscored the importance of including women in peace processeses to ensure the sustainability of peace in conflict-affected communities. There is also a rich body of literature on the role of religion in both perpetuating and transforming conflict, rooted in traditional norms and values of peace and reconciliation, which has come to be known as religious or faith-based peacebuilding. However, not much has been written on the intersection of women, religion, and peacebuilding and how this plays out in specific conflict contexts. Stemming from Third World Feminism—which combines both African and Islamic feminisms—as the theoretical framework for its analysis, the thesis contributes to bridging the gap in literature on the intersection of women, religion, and peacebuilding. It builds on the scant literature on the role of women in religious or faith-based peacebuilding and explores the role religion—being one of the major factors shaping the culture and identity of societies—plays in enhancing or obstructing the role of women in the various forms of peacebuilding processes. To this end, the study adopted a research design rooted in feminist epistemology that highlights the specificities of the context within which the relationship between religion and women peacebuilding roles is analysed. Both the qualitative research and case study approaches were combined given the nature of the research objectives and questions, which required the collection and analysis of qualitative data from both primary and secondary sources to examine the relationship between women, religion, and peacebuilding in Sudan. This accommodated an in-depth examination of this relationship in the case of Sudan by focusing on civil society organizations and actors working on peacebuilding issues in the country as units of analysis. It also allowed for reflecting the voices and agencies of ordinary Sudanese women, as African and Muslim agents, through capturing their insights and perspectives on their various roles in peacebuilding, the challenges militating against their participation, and the impact of religion on their participation and inclusion in the informal and formal peacebuilding domain. In-depth interviews and a focus group discussion with international and local organizations and actors working on issues related to women and peacebuilding in Sudan were employed. Both secondary and primary data were analysed using a combination of content analysis and thematic analysis techniques, which allowed room for a deeper understanding of the relationships between the main research variables and contributed to bridging the gap in literature between “women and peacebuilding” and “religion and peacebuilding”. Based on its findings, the study concludes that in societies such as Sudan where religion plays a dominant constitutive role in social existence, its impact on women’s participation and representation in peacebuilding processes is profound and needs to be theorized. The case is therefore made for a Global South feminist theoretical perspective that takes historical and cultural contexts into account, including the multiplicity of actors and processes involved in peacebuilding and conflict transformation, while reflecting the agency and voices of women in Africa and the Global South, and making them the starting point of the research, rather than its objects. Keywords: Feminism, Peacebuilding, Religion, Sudan, Women. / Thesis (PhD (International Relations))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Political Sciences / PhD (International Relations) / Unrestricted

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Management (in the field of Public and Development Management) 2016 / The purpose of this research study was to obtain the views and perceptions of Namibia veterans of the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), the armed wingof SWAPO, on compensation as a part of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process. This process compensates former freedom fighters as a reward for having contributed to the liberation struggle. DDR is one of the most important peace stabilising tools that is internationally recognised and the UN has adopted it as a pre-requisite for any peace agreement process in countrieswhich had experienced violent conflict. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the war veterans’ perception regarding ‘compensation’ being paid as a reward to former fighters of the Namibia liberation struggle by the Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs.Structured interviews were conducted to collect data, and data analysis was done by identifying themes.Microsoft Excel statistics functions were used to calculate the totals, produce tables, graphs and pie charts. The main finding of the study was that the former freedom fighters were facing many challenges and the government was far from addressing these challenges in their totality. The study found that the government was committed to address the plight of the former freedom fighters; however, the implementation of such a programme was fraught with challenges, such as the lack of resources and good governance. Moreover, the study established that the reintegration process was not addressing the issues of both groups of ex-combatants in Namibia. / GR2018

yes / The ideology of the liberal peace has propelled the political economies of war-torn societies into a scheme of global convergence towards ¿market liberalisation¿. This orthodoxy was an uncontestable assumption underlying external economic assistance. However, the project faltered under its inherent contradictions and because it ignored the socio-economic problems confronting war-torn societies, even aggravating them by increasing the vulnerability of populations to poverty and shadow economic activity. Although revisionists have embarked on a mission to boost the UN¿s peacebuilding capacity and also rescue the Millennium Development Goals, the basic assumptions of the liberal peace are not challenged and potential alternatives are overlooked.

This thesis deals with the circumstances that lead to a fragmented implementation of post-conflict justice and security reforms and their negative impact on institutional capacity to provide justice and security for citizens. It strenghtens the existing critique of SSR by employing liberal peacebuilding critique to examine the development of the SSR agenda within the security-development nexus mainstream and the difficulties in learning from SSR experience. The main research question concerns the factors affecting the coherence and sequencing of justice and security system reforms, and is addressed through a case study of Mozambique. The analysis identifies power dynamics surrounding formal and informal interactions that impact institutional change, and showcase the vulnerability of justice and security system reforms to co-optation by powerful international and national players. Throughout, patterns of critical juncture and path dependence are identified that have influenced the adaptation of powerful local players to external and domestic pressures which resulted in political and institutional bricolage. The thesis also looks at how the sequencing of Mozambique’s triple transition, in which economic liberalisation prevailed over peacebuilding and democratisation, shaped the post-civil war direction and pace of the defence, police and justice reforms. The 1992 peace agreement and the public sector reform programme are investigated with regards to the failure of driving substantive SSR and of imparting it coherence and sequencing in the short, medium and longer term. Finally, lessons are proposed for future reform in Mozambique, and recommendations are drawn for improving the design of strategy and implementation of SSR in general. / Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology

This thesis argues that a peace-oriented struggle has emerged in Peshawar from within the non–state space and is demonstrated at the empirical level by various associations in that space. The struggle to embrace peace and reject different forms of violence, by this associational life in Peshawar is what we call an ‘emergent civil society’. The thesis argues against those who claim that civil society cannot exist or flourish in a non-western environment. Civil Society in Peshawar is emergent, as the empirical evidence suggests, but within an overarching tendency to root this in a local cultural identity. The latter is, however, imbued with values, belief systems, and gender roles, which limit the search for peace. Two examples are the dominance of a hyper masculinity and religious orthodoxies, which undermine forms of associationalism which might promote peace. To find an indigenous cultural identity, the ‘emergent civil society’ navigates, not without tensions, across three different worldviews that includes cultural (Pakhtunwali), religious (Islam) and, to a certain extent, liberal (human rights) perspectives. The tensions between different perspectives become more frictional when the ‘emergent civil society’ advocates women’s rights and religious pluralism, which is resisted by the antithetical forces of masculinity and religious orthodoxies. Amidst these contestations, the ‘emergent civil society’, while resisting these antithetical forces, pressurizes the state also to provide favourable conditions to continue its peace-oriented struggle. This thesis, however, suggests that the ‘emergent civil society’ also needs an in-ward looking tendency to self reflect on certain challenges that seem to impact the potential for growth and development of an associational life, which can fully embrace the social conditions for peace.

This study aims to examine the relation between Sudanese police and peacebuilding in the country following an exceptionally long period of varied and complex violent conflict Literature on peacebuilding acknowledges the increasing role of police in peacebuilding, but is more often focussed on international police forces than domestic police. in order to investigate the roles of domestic forces in peacebuilding an analysis of the Sudan police is undertaken, which includes its history, organisation, management, training and the adoption of a policy of ‘community policing’. The study evaluates community policing as relatively modern policing style that is espoused by international peace builders in post conflict settings. It also examines the placement of police in peace agreements. The study concludes that whilst international police efforts in peacebuilding are not without pitfalls, domestic police, such as the Sudanese, may also be unfit for peacebuilding roles without changes in certain aspects of their organisational, management, recruitment, training and policing approaches. The study proposes a more combined approach that brings together domestic and international police for more effective role in peacebuilding.