The concepts of security and development have always existed, even before the end of the Cold War. However, it was the former United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali who introduced to the world, the notion of a ‘security-development nexus’. This notion was encouraged by the shift in security concerns. This was a shift from traditional perspective focusing on protecting the interests and borders of the state, to a focus on ensuring the safety of citizens within a state. Such safety included a duty by the state to protect its citizens from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression. Moreover, the focus in this notion of a nexus shifted towards protecting citizens from sudden and harmful disruption in the patterns of their daily lives. This notion of a security-development nexus resulted in the need to appraise the significance of the factors that underpin this fundamental shift in the African context; to conduct an assessment of the understanding and perceptions held about Africa’s approach to this nexus; and to propose some measures which African governments can utilise to sustain the new approach to the security-development nexus, including possible areas of further research. The study discovered that many African countries are unable to utilise this nexus to their advantage because they face too many intra-state conflicts which they couldn’t control, and they were also underdeveloped. It was then clear that many African countries needed external involvement. As a result, the researcher decided to do assess one of Africa’s biggest partners, China. The purpose was to discover the extent to which an external player’s (China) involvement in African contributes to the strengthening on this security-development nexus in Africa. The study was carried out following a qualitative research methodology that combines both the descriptive and analytical approaches. The descriptive approach largely draws from the literature studies of primary and secondary sources, and the analytical approach was useful in analysing the extent to which China’s involvement in Africa contributes to the security-development nexus. The findings confirmed that notwithstanding China’s alleged exploitation and extraction of raw material and natural resources in Africa, they are to a certain extent contributing to the security-development nexus in Africa. The research findings also established that the relationship between China and Africa is a mutual beneficial one. It is not one where China only exploits Africa’s raw material and natural resources. It is based on a give and take partnership. While China provides African countries with development aid, unconditional loans, grants and infrastructure development, China is also gaining in return. It is therefore clear that a number of factors regarding China’s involvement in Africa needs to be debated and researched before one can conclude that China does not contribute to the security-development nexus in Africa, and also to measure the exact extent to which China contributes to the security-development nexus in Africa. / Mini-Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Political Sciences / Unrestricted

The peacekeeping mechanism is arguably the most important tool the United Nations can resort to when dealing with threats to international peace and security. Since the end of the Cold War, a number of Security Council resolutions and peacekeeping policies have acknowledged the importance of increasing the number of female peacekeepers in the uniformed components of UN missions in order to adapt to the changing nature of violent conflicts and to address new security threats. This study focuses on the integration of women in peace operations and their impact on both the mission and the host population by exploring the case of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). MINUSTAH was seen by Haitians as a return to international occupation, which was exacerbated by the many cases recorded of sexual violence by peacekeepers against the host population. The MINUSTAH case tests the argument that women peacekeepers improve a UN mission’s operational effectiveness because of their assumed inherent ability to connect with the host community and tame the violent behaviour of their male counterparts. This study argues that without addressing issues of men and violent masculinities in military institutions, providing female peacekeepers with proper pre-deployment training, and deploying more women in front-line positions, simply raising the number of women deployed in the field is insufficient to really improve the operational effectiveness of UN missions. Keywords: UN peacekeeping, gender mainstreaming, women peacekeepers, UNSCR 1325, MINUSTAH, Haiti / Mini Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Political Sciences / MA / Unrestricted

How does the political environment that a group operates affect whether they engage in terrorism? My research is concerned with how political opportunities, which I conceptualize in terms of political decentralization, affect how groups engage with the state, and whether they will engage in terrorism. Previous research has indicated that decentralization can reduce violence but can pose stability problems in other countries. I hypothesize that states with higher levels of decentralization will have lower levels of violence. I believe this works by allowing minority groups more access to power. Because they have access to political power, there is less incentive to use violence to achieve their political goals. This project is tested with a large-N study of democratic countries. I also engaged in two case studies focused on Northern Ireland and Spain, looking at the IRA and ETA, respectively. These two case studies trace the effect of changing levels of centralization on the behavior of minority groups. This study finds that political opportunities often lead to less violence in the long-term. Decentralization is one way of achieving this. However, sometimes decentralization may not work because it could take away rights from minorities; while in other cases, even after decentralization begins to take place, it can take a while for changes to take hold. Both the Northern Ireland and Spanish cases show that it is not always so simple as just saying decentralization will take place, or that it has begun.

Since the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), US administrations have criticized their European allies for not meeting security burden-sharing goals. This study aims to gain insight into what factors motivate alliance members to contribute to the burden-sharing objectives they have agreed to achieve. From a US perspective, the need for its European allies to reach these goals will allow the United States to shift resources to more pressing strategic challenges like the rise of China. Informed by Mancur Olson's theory of collective action and Glenn Snyder's concept of the security dilemma in alliances, this project tests the hypothesis that the more a NATO ally's foreign policy interests align with those of the United States, the less that ally will spend on defense as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This study uses a mixed-methods approach. The primary metric measuring an ally's contribution is the percentage of its GDP spent on defense. Furthermore, this study breaks NATO's history into three geopolitical periods: the Cold War (1950 to 1990), the Post-Cold War (1991 to 2006), and the Resurgent period (2007 to 2019). The analysis yields robust support for the theory in periods lacking a major threat (i.e., the Post-Cold War). That means the more aligned an ally's foreign policy preferences are with the United States, the less that ally spends on defense as a percentage of its GDP in such periods. The implications of these findings suggest that with the intensified threat of Russia made apparent with its attack on Ukraine in 2022, burden sharing in the NATO alliance will be less of a problem for the US in the immediate future. However, when this threat recedes, the burden-sharing issue will return, and the United States will have to send credible signals (like withdrawing troops from Europe) to its allies to cause them to question US protection and increase defense spending.

Terrorism is a growing security issue for the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, most of what is understood or assumed about terrorism is based on traditional and realist understandings of the problem. There has been a skewed focus on male recruits and their participation. One way in which inaccurate research and representation of men in terrorist organisations has been portrayed is through the fact that behind women’s participation in terrorist organisations, a motivation is always given to explain their participation. This is where a gap in literature has been identified. In order to fill this gap, this study uses the feminist theoretical approach to form an understanding of women’s autonomy in Al-Shabaab through a lens that is not masculinist and free from gendered stereotypes. Furthermore, this ensures a broad bottom-up analysis of women in Al-Shabaab. A case study of Al-Shabaab found that women are victimised by Al-Shabaab, but also some women are autonomous actors of Al-Shabaab. Women are victimised in various ways including sexual and physical abuse, and through the limitations of various freedoms. However, some women do play more active roles, including acting as recruiters, fundraisers, teachers, explosive experts, suicide bombers, and spies among others. When comparing these two groups of women it is evident that even women who are victimised by Al-Shabaab do in some situations participate in the terrorist organisation’s activities. However, the reason for victims’ participation is purely due to their need for survival, whereas autonomous actors are motivated by diverse factors which include economic motivators, revenge, the need for power and influence, and a shared ideology and religion of Al-Shabaab. Motivation is also found to be an important tool in creating innovative counter-insurgency campaigns and strategies against Al-Shabaab. By questioning what Al-Shabaab’s motivations are, it is found that not only are its motivations different from its goals and aims, but in many cases the importance of its motivations outweighs its ideological and religious importance. By exploiting the motivations of Al-Shabaab, it is possible to create doubt within its members or potential members’ minds that Al-Shabaab’ goals and aims are not what it projects; but rather, that it uses its ideology and religion to manipulate those that share similar beliefs to join the cause. Thus, creating cracks in Al-Shabaab, its legitimacy and its authority without the use of any weapon, creating an innovative counter-insurgency strategy / Mini Dissertation (MA (Security Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Political Sciences / MA (Security Studies) / Unrestricted

Military coups are the most consequential breakdown of civil-military relations. This dissertation contributes to the explanation and prediction of coups through three independent quantitative analyses. First, I argue that food insecurity is an important determinant of coups. The presence of hunger can generate discontent in society and subsequently alter coup plotter opportunities. Furthermore, I show that the presence of chronic hunger can condition the effect of increasing development. While increasing levels of development have been shown to limit coup proclivity, a state experiencing chronic hunger will recognize the fundamental failure of basic needs provision. As development increases, the presence of chronic hunger in a state will therefore increase the likelihood of a coup when compared to its absence. Findings indicate that food insecurity, and specifically the conditioning influence of chronic hunger, are important explanatory predictors of coups. In the second analysis, I argue that existing tests of the Coup-Contagion hypothesis have not been sensitive to the specific pathways through which coups may diffuse. After a robust analysis of spatial autocorrelation, I derive a novel feature of contagion that is sensitive to both shocks and historical legacy of neighborhood coups. Regression models including coup contagion as a predictor, provide substantive support for my hypotheses. In the final assessment, I synthesize explanatory models and provide a machine learning framework to forecast coups. This framework builds on a growing effort in social science to predict episodes of political instability. I leverage a rolling origin technique for cross-validation, sequential feature selection, and an ensemble voting classifier to provide forecasts for coups at the yearly level. I find that predictive sensitivity to coups is increasing over time using these methods and can result in practical forecasts for policy makers.

The project studies enlistment into Pro-Government Militia groups (or PGMs) in the context of modern armed conflicts. While PGMs as armed groups are getting an increased attention, very little insight has been generated regarding the circumstances under which pro-government combatants choose to join PGMs over the army. I develop survey tools, a survey experiments and a series of semi-structured interviews to study individual-level factors affecting recruitment dynamics in Ukraine, the country that successfully employed PGMs to defend itself against Russian hybrid aggression. The inquiry tests for the role of such factors as trust in the army, emotions, and subjective individual reasons (existential desires), and is aimed at helping policy makers and military analysts better understand combatants' motivation to join the fight and the potential of grassroots mobilization in the context of well-developed Western societies. The results offer several insights. The interview analysis reveals that the ex-combatants situate their choice within a dichotomy of "fight" vs. "serve". These self-identified fighters are driven to PGMs by their existential need for excitement, meaning or the need to "reinvent" themselves. Other most-cited reasons include the lack of trust in the army and informal communitarian obligations before the nation as opposed to the state. On the national level, results of an emotion-based survey experiment suggest that the respondents who experience pride as a result of recent conflict developments are more likely to support potential conflict participation of their friends and family. In contrast, self-efficacious, highly motivated individuals, are interested in joining PGMs as a way to fight for their home while not being constrained by army bureaucracy.

Intrusions are the intentional unauthorized violation of a state's sovereign territory or claimed space (e.g., air defense identification zone, exclusive economic zone) by assets controlled by another state. Intrusions are one of the most common military interactions between major powers. Yet, intrusions are poorly understood by security studies scholars. To the extent that they are addressed in the literature, they are usually understood through the lens of coercive signaling. However, most intrusions lack the requisite components for this coercive signaling such as competing political objectives, associated demands, and the necessary risk to demonstrate resolve. As a result, most intrusions are left unexplained by the literature. This dissertation argues that states use intrusions and responses to intrusions to assert their relative status in bilateral relationships. Leaders that are dissatisfied with their state's status in relation to another country are more likely to exhibit a pattern of escalated intrusions or responses to intrusions as a means of reframing the status relationship. The study tests these hypotheses using case studies centered on Chinese and Russian leaders vis-a-vis the United States. The cases were constructed using interviews with current and former senior officials as well as archival resources (some recently declassified). These findings are important. They provide insight on how states communicate and compete for status as well as the role of intimidation and deference in interstate relationships. The findings also help clarify how and why leaders today are using intrusions such as Xi Jinping in the South and East China Seas and Vladimir Putin's resumption of long-range bomber patrols against the United States and other NATO countries.

China has two contrasting images in the West: a cute panda and an evil dragon. In recent years, a near-consensus seems to be forming among policy makers in Washington that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is more of an evil dragon than a cute panda, using "sharp power" to threaten U.S. interests and world peace. The PRC is regarded by the current U.S. administration as a "strategic competitor," and a new Cold War seems to be looming between the world's two largest economies. Is the rise of China destined to cause conflicts or even war? After analyzing the conflict behavior of the PRC documented in the Correlates of War project's Militarized Interstate Dispute dataset (v4.3), this research shows that China's rise does not seem to make conflict more likely. Instead, with the growth of its power, Beijing has become increasingly reluctant to use force against other states. Drawing on the economic norms theory, the author argues that the development of the capitalist-market economy since late 1970s has fundamentally changed China's economic conditions, social norms and political culture. This transformation has helped the PRC form increasing interests in maintaining a robust global marketplace and a peaceful world order, thus making war or serious conflicts with other nations almost unimaginable. Currently, China is more a panda rather than a dragon. However, the West needs to remember that though vegetarian and non-predatory, pandas are bears with sharp teeth and nails. When pressured and cornered, they can be dangerous. The misunderstanding and fear of China, rather than the rise of China itself, is the real cause of the recent rise of US-China frictions.

Great powers have often sought to achieve their strategic goals through the allocation of military aid. The United States is no exception, as it has frequently used military aid to influence the policies and military capacity of its allies and partners. However, our understanding of the effects of US military aid on the conflict behavior of recipient states - and especially the mechanisms underlying these effects - remains poorly understood. The results of previous studies of U.S. military aid are often contradictory, and are mostly based on over-aggregated, country-level data. In this dissertation, I argue that examining the individual-level effects will give us a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying country-level associations between US military aid and recipient behavior. I examine three research questions related to the manner in which military aid influences conflict in recipient countries. First, I explore the individual effects of U.S. IMET using semi-structures in-depth interviews and an original survey of Hungarian military officers and non-commissioned officers. This paper investigates the transmission of professional values and "democratic" norms to individual participants through the U.S. IMET programs. Second, I investigate the effects of U.S. IMET participation on civil conflict duration. I argue that government forces with more robust U.S. IMET participation will accumulate more and better military human capital, which incentivize rebels to hide and minimize their operations leading to a prolonged civil conflict. Finally, while exploring recipient states international conflict behavior I theorize that American educated and trained foreign military personnel return home with a better understanding about the role of the military as an instrument of national power, civil-military relations, the value of cooperation and the cost of war. I argue that these military personnel advise their political masters against the use of military force during international disputes leading to a decreased probability of MID initiation. I find support for each of the main arguments presented in the dissertation. Overall, this dissertation represents one of the first attempts to move beyond country-level data and explore the micro-foundations of US military assistance.