Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2003. / Title from title screen (viewed May 10, 2004). "December 2003." Includes bibliographical references (p. 162-175). Also issued in paper format.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Using the Sudan/Darfur Conflict as a case study, this work seeks to address how and why the human security paradigm is a challenge for the African Union in its effort to establish long-term peace and stability in Africa. The purpose of the study is to assess the extent to which the human security model provides a realistic option with regard to the AU’s efforts which are aimed at enhancing peace and security in Africa. The key issues to be appraised include the extent to which AU’s policy framework for intervention in crisis situations emphasizes the need to protect the most vulnerable population groups such as non-combatant women and children, IDPs, and refugees; the parameters of the AU’s intervention framework and how effective the organization has been in addressing human security issues in Darfur; the challenges faced by the regional military forces and key development stakeholders in carrying out initiatives that will alleviate human suffering and simultaneously create conditions conducive to conflict resolution and a long term peace building process in Darfur; and proffering new prospects of action to ensure human security in armed conflicts The emergence of deep ethnic conflicts, the rise of rebel groups, and new and ambitious security initiatives have made regional efforts at establishing peace more daunting than before. The AU has started putting human beings more and more at the centre of its management of peace and security issues, but it remains severely constrained by financial and logistical problems. As a result, its success has been dependent on foreign contributions, something its predecessor (Organization of African Unity) always fought against. This study highlights the fact that AU efforts to ensure peace in Africa continue to be constantly frustrated due to the failure of African leaders to address the root threats to human security. Their failure to do so has in fact worsened the human security situation on the continent. The paper focuses on challenges faced by the AU specifically in the Darfur region, and explores whether the AU can be an actor in the promotion of human security. The main argument here is that the AU’s ownership approach to peace and security in the African continent, which emphasizes that African problems need to be solved by Africans, is fundamentally correct. However, for this to be successful Africans need to stop asking for whatever they think they can get from the international community and focus on what they really need. This does not deny the importance of promoting a strong global political will to assist African peacekeeping efforts, especially in terms of logistics and finances. Rather, the challenge for the AU is to use donor support strategically and to continue to employ a conflict preventive approach, one which places great emphasis on the significance and need for African leaders to start addressing human security issues from their root causes –whether social, economic or political. With the collaborative efforts of nongovernmental organizations, subregional organizations and the civil society, the AU could establish ‘AU alert institutions’ which will aim at ensuring that minority groups have a political voice, thus not only reducing the chances of ethnically based conflicts but also ensuring that sustainable development projects are implemented by tackling the root causes of conflict. / Thesis (M. Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

This dissertation addresses the puzzle as to why some regions in the world are engulfed in militarized disputes among member states, while other regions live under peaceful conditions. It argues that domestic regime-societal management strategies have significant explanatory value to understand variance in regional orders. These domestic factors have largely been ignored in International Relations (IR) literature. A domestic politics-based analytical framework explains how states with inclusionary governing regimes (those which account for the interests of societal actors in policy formulation and consequently give them stakes in the survival of the regime) are more likely to move the regional order towards stability. On the other hand, states with exclusionary regimes (those which do not account for the interests of societal actors in policy formulation and consequently do not give them stakes in the survival of the regime) are more likely to push the regional order toward instability. / The dissertation also addresses a frequently underexposed dimension of IR theory: exactly how do major powers influence regional orders? It argues that major powers penetrate regional states in support of either societal actors or regimes (and sometimes both). In that process major powers help alter the power asymmetries inside regional states affecting their preferences and strategies, and hence their behaviour towards the regional order. / The analytical framework is used to explain variations in Middle East regional orders through four paired comparisons of six states: Israel-Egypt, Israel-Turkey, Israel-Syria, and Iran-Saudi Arabia. The time frame under study is from 1950 to 2000. The change in the Middle East regional order post-1990 did not correspond in magnitude to the change in the international system, adding credibility to this framework which prioritizes domestic level variables in shaping regional orders.

This thesis has been pre-occupied with four major interconnected projects. The first of these was a search for an understanding of the nature of the crisis of structural legitimacy that currently afflicts the fragmented post-colonial African state, an enquiry that examines the nature of the very phenomena that the law has sought to regulate. The second was to understand the nature, and social effects, of the various doctrinal attitudes historically exhibited by international law and institutions toward the phenomenon of "socio-cultural fragmentation within established states". In this respect, I have sought to understand the ways in which certain doctrines of international law and institutions have provided powerful arguments, justifications or excuses for those states that have deemed it necessary to attempt to forge coercively, both a sense of common citizenship, and an ethos of national coherence, among their various component sub-state groups. The third was to chart the ongoing normative and factual transformation of the traditional approaches that international law and institutions have adopted toward that problem, and thereby map the extent to which these institutions have taken advantage of such innovations, enabling them to actually contribute to the effort to prevent and/or reduce the incidence of internecine strife in specific African contexts. And the last was to recommend a way forward that is guided by the conclusions of the thesis: a way in which these institution-driven transformations can be encouraged and consolidated in the specific context of African states. For purposes of brevity and the imperative need for focus, these enquiries have been conducted in the specific but somewhat allegorical context of Africa. It is hoped, however, that even this largely Africa-specific analysis has contributed to the advancement of knowledge regarding the general question of the relationship among the doctrines of international law, the activities of multilateral institutions, and the management of the problems of socio-cultural fragmentation and internecine strife within established states.

Despite the widely hailed success of South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy it was apparent by the mid-2000s that beneath the veneer of stability lay a country facing serious social and economic challenges. The employment and labour market participation rates were uniquely low among emerging markets. Protest action against the state had reached levels last encountered in the volatile 1980s and early 1990s. The budget and current account deficits had reached unsustainable levels. By its own admission the government realised that the country was not recording GDP growth rates necessary to make dramatic inroads into poverty, unemployment and inequality levels. A number of analysts and commentators therefore came to question the future stability of South Africa’s political system. Trade unions and some Cabinet ministers routinely described unemployment as a “ticking time bomb”. The Chairman of the Institute of International Affairs wrote in Business Day that he could predict when South Africa’s “Tunisia Day” would arrive. The respected Economist newspaper ran a front page feature on what it called South Africa’s “downhill slide”. Former President FW de Klerk warned that South Africa was approaching a precipice. Clem Sunter, South Africa’s most renowned scenario planner, upped his prospects that South Africa may become a failed state. Global ratings agencies downgraded South Africa citing the fear that government policy could not meet popular demands. Amidst such speculation it is vitally important that the prospects for instability be investigated and determined, not via opinion or speculation, but rather against a sound body of theory. This task is complicated by the fact that the feared instability may only occur at a point in the future. The theory must therefore be applied via a methodology capable of overcoming the weak track record of political science in accurately anticipating major shifts in political systems. This problem statement will be addressed by showing that complex systems theory holds the key to a series of units of analysis via which the stability or instability of any political system can be objectively determined, compared to any other political system, and tracked over time. Secondly that there are scenario planning methodologies that can overcome the uncertainty inherent in the futures of all complex systems and thereby the poor track record that political scientists have in anticipating dramatic future changes in the systems they study. When combined into a single complex systems/scenario model, these theoretical and methodological points of departure will allow the long term prospects for stability or instability of any political system to be accurately and objectively determined. / PhD (Development and Management) North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Despite the widely hailed success of South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy it was apparent by the mid-2000s that beneath the veneer of stability lay a country facing serious social and economic challenges. The employment and labour market participation rates were uniquely low among emerging markets. Protest action against the state had reached levels last encountered in the volatile 1980s and early 1990s. The budget and current account deficits had reached unsustainable levels. By its own admission the government realised that the country was not recording GDP growth rates necessary to make dramatic inroads into poverty, unemployment and inequality levels. A number of analysts and commentators therefore came to question the future stability of South Africa’s political system. Trade unions and some Cabinet ministers routinely described unemployment as a “ticking time bomb”. The Chairman of the Institute of International Affairs wrote in Business Day that he could predict when South Africa’s “Tunisia Day” would arrive. The respected Economist newspaper ran a front page feature on what it called South Africa’s “downhill slide”. Former President FW de Klerk warned that South Africa was approaching a precipice. Clem Sunter, South Africa’s most renowned scenario planner, upped his prospects that South Africa may become a failed state. Global ratings agencies downgraded South Africa citing the fear that government policy could not meet popular demands. Amidst such speculation it is vitally important that the prospects for instability be investigated and determined, not via opinion or speculation, but rather against a sound body of theory. This task is complicated by the fact that the feared instability may only occur at a point in the future. The theory must therefore be applied via a methodology capable of overcoming the weak track record of political science in accurately anticipating major shifts in political systems. This problem statement will be addressed by showing that complex systems theory holds the key to a series of units of analysis via which the stability or instability of any political system can be objectively determined, compared to any other political system, and tracked over time. Secondly that there are scenario planning methodologies that can overcome the uncertainty inherent in the futures of all complex systems and thereby the poor track record that political scientists have in anticipating dramatic future changes in the systems they study. When combined into a single complex systems/scenario model, these theoretical and methodological points of departure will allow the long term prospects for stability or instability of any political system to be accurately and objectively determined. / PhD (Development and Management) North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Political Science, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2002. Graduate Programme in Philosophy. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-266). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ82825.

"A Thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies for completion of graduation requirements." / "June 2003." Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-80).