In an attempt to understand the micro-dimensional mechanisms of how some individuals come to perpetrate violence against civilians during wartime, this thesis adopts a theory from organisational psychology. By looking at the military as a professional organisation, violence against civilians perpetrated by state armies during wartime is theorised to be the outcome of a process of script error wherein military scripts of non-combatant immunity fail. The theory is applied on the massacre in My Lai, during the Vietnam war. Findings showed that the mechanism of script error did not play out completely as theorised, however that military scripts did dictate behaviour and that a script error was present to some degree as civilians came to be targeted as if they were enemies. Some mechanisms used in previous research on violence against civilians were supported by this study and could also be integrated into the framework of organisational scripts, showing the explanatory value that organisational scripts have to further understand military violence. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of an important historical case, shows the value of introducing organisational psychology into studies of the military organisation and finally helps us further make sense of situations of violent transgression.  organisational scripts, script error, military violence, violence against civilians, mass violence, atrocity, My Lai

Academics and practitioners often assume that arms and violence against civilians are positively correlated. Existing research on small arms and light weapons (SALW) and major conventional weapons (MCW) imports, however, find that arms are a weak explanatory factor for intrastate violence. When the focus is on arms imports’ impact on the level of one-sided violence (OSV) specifically, earlier studies’ findings suggest that the comparative organisational size of armed actors is an important conditioning variable that influences the direction and magnitude of the impact arms imports have on rebel and government perpetrated OSV. Using OLS regression models, this thesis finds that increasing SALW imports are linked to no increase in the level of rebel perpetrated OSV and a marginal decrease for the level of OSV perpetrated by large government forces. MCW imports have a negative correlation for large rebel groups and governments, but no impact for small rebel groups or government forces. In all specifications, the magnitude of the impact arms imports conditional on troop size have on rebel or government perpetrated OSV remains small. This suggests the need for policymakers to focus on humanitarian and economic interventions, rather than arms when pursuing protection of civilians.

Beyond the material consequences, violence can have a great psychological impact on the individual. Violence can cause institutional and interpersonal distrust, and in turn harm economic growth and political stability. As of today, there is more knowledge about the consequences of trust than its determinants, and longitudinal studies are scarce. This paper exploits survey data and disaggregated data on violence from Mexico, a country which since 2007 has experienced a rapid increase in violence. With the use of a Linear Fixed Effects Model, I analyse the impact of municipal level violence on trust in crime-related institutions and in other individuals. I find a significant relationship, robust across different model specifications, between exposure to battles and trust in the federal, state, and municipal police forces. This positive effect is also found for battles involving police forces. Furthermore, I find evidence of a negative relationship between riots and interpersonal trust.

The issue of child soldiering continues to be a significant part of armed conflicts. The research on children in conflict has not fully been able to understand how children not only experience but also actively participate in war. This thesis is premised in the pre-condition of low civilian support which in varying rates of child soldiering are expected to explain different outcomes in rebel violence against civilians. The examination is done through the lens of socialization theory. During the 1990’s the rates of child soldiering were extreme, causing rise to groups such as the RUF, AIS and brought attention to the KNU. These three cases are compared using Mill’s method of difference and structured focused comparison. The thesis finds that low civilian support is instrumental but ultimately inefficient to explain the variation in outcomes and proposes to look further into the influence of natural resource dependency and political ideologies.

The aim of this thesis is to observe and analyze the effects of religious dimensions in armed conflict on violence against civilians. Focusing on rebel groups in intra-state conflicts, quantitative statistical analysis in form of Ordinary Least Squares multivariate regression, is utilized to examine data onreligious wars, one-sided violence, and conflict-related sexual violence. Two hypotheses are formulatedand tested; that (1) higher significance of religion in armed conflict leads to higher levels of one-sidedviolence, as well as that (2) higher significance of religion leads to higher levels of conflict-related sexual violence. The results, relying on four different datasets and 1107 observations, empirically support both hypotheses. The conclusion of this thesis suggests that civilians are found to be particularly vulnerable in religious armed conflict, pointing to the importance and urgency of further and closer examination of civilian victimization in these types of wars.

The purpose of this study is to attempt to solve why the Taliban have been successful in Afghanistan. In an attempt to solve why, I develop and test a theory on the Taliban's success against the U.S. in Afghanistan. My theory claims that the Taliban have been successful due to U.S. forces committing wrongdoings towards Afghan civilians. These wrongdoings, in turn, pushed civilian support away from the U.S. and its allies in this war. Afghan civilians would side with the Taliban, as they sought protection from the invading forces in their country. As a result of this gain in support, the Taliban were able to bolster the preexisting social ties they had, which allowed them to garner more fighters and resources; the bolstering of their social networks made their success more achievable. I test my theory qualitatively through interviews with American veterans who served in the War in Afghanistan. Through the process of interviews, no evidence that indicates that U.S. forces mistreating Afghans is conditional for Afghans choosing the Taliban. Interviews instead indicate that Afghans chose the Taliban due to pressure and coercion. Despite the introduction of pressure, coercion, and other new potential factors I ultimately have determined my study to be inconclusive due to limitations that prevented the ability to conduct deeper research; those limitations will be explained in the Conclusion section.

In 1939, when Germany mobilized its military against neighboring Poland, LDS missionaries were notified to evacuate their missions. In August 1940, the full-time missionaries in the South African and Pacific missions were also evacuated because of the spread of hostilities in Europe. Later the missionaries were released from the missions in South America. By 1943 the only missionaries serving outside of North America were in Hawaii.All of the more than eight hundred missionaries were transported at Church expense to America, where they were either reassigned to missions within the United States or released to return to their homes. All this was accomplished without serious illness or accident. This thesis recounts their activities, experiences, and problems. Special research emphasis has been given to personal interviews and contemporary journal accounts.

Since the start of the Iraq conflict, world-renowned security expert Paul Rogers has produced a series of monthly reports scrutinising developments in the occupation and the Iraqi response to it, drawing on the unique range of contacts and material available to the prestigious Oxford Research Group. They have become the standard source material for journalists, policymakers and campaigners writing about Iraq. Now, for the first time, Paul Rogers has brought these reports together to provide a detailed and authoritative analysis of the last year in Iraq. A disturbing picture emerges, in which coalition forces repeatedly misread the direction of the insurgency, in which radical groups gain strength through the ongoing (and underreported) loss of civilian lives at the hands of the occupying forces, and in which the US's determination to secure the Persian Gulf's oil and gas resources lock it further and further into a destructive, intractable, and ultimately counter-productive war in the Middle East. Concisely-written and highly accessible, "Iraq and the War on Terror" is an indispensable book for anyone interested the Middle East, US foreign policy and international security. Its conclusions about the extent of the damage caused by the war, and how long the occupation looks set to last, will send shockwaves through policymakers in the US and the UK alike.

Whilst the academic discipline analysing violence against civilians from a strategic perspective has seen significant growth over the last decades, a key issue has been neglected: the goals of the perpetrating actors. This thesis aims to narrow this research gap through answering the question: How do the conflict aims of rebel groups impact levels of violence against civilians? To do so, a theoretical framework is built, based on a categorisation of rebel conflict aims through combining a multitude of academic fields, which is then analysed through a large-N quantitative method. This study analyses an extensive 30-year world-wide dataset on the aims of rebel groups and rebel violence against civilians, and finds that different aims have significant effects on both civilian casualties and mass violence. Whilst some results support the hypothesised theories, others are indicative of contradictory relationships, further indicating the necessity of continued and expanded research into the conflict aims of rebel groups.

The goal of this research is to develop a heuristic traffic assignment method to simulate the traffic flow of a transportation network at a real-time speed. The existing assignment methods are reviewed and a heuristic path-recording assignment method is proposed. Using the new heuristic assignment method, trips are loaded onto the network in a probabilistic approach for the first iteration; paths are recorded, and path impedance is computed as the basis for further assignment iteration. The real-time traffic assignment model developed with the new assignment method is called HEUPRAE. The difference in link traffic between this new assignment and Dial's multipath assignment ranges from 10 to 25 percent. Saving in computer time is about 55 percent. The proposed heuristic path-recording assignment is believed to be an efficient and reliable method. Successful development of this heuristic assignment method helps solve those transportation problems which need assignment results at a real-time speed, and for which the assignment process lasts a couple of hours. Evacuation planning and operation are well suited to the application of this real-time heuristic assignment method. Evacuation planning and operations are major activities in emergency management. Evacuation planning instructs people where to go, which route to take, and the time needed to accomplish an evacuation. Evacuation operations help the execution of an evacuation plan in response to the changing nature of a disaster. The Integrated Evacuation Decision Support System (IEDSS) is a computer system which employs the evacuation planning model, MASSVAC2, and the evacuation operation model, HEUPRAE, to deal with evacuations. The IEDSS uses computer graphics to prepare input and interpret output. It helps a decision maker analyze the evacuation system, review evacuation plans, and issue an evacuation order at a proper time. Users of the IEDSS can work on evacuation problems in a friendly interactive visual environment. The application of the IEDSS to the hurricane and flood problems for the city of Virginia Beach shows how IEDSS is practically implemented. It proves the usefulness of the IEDSS in coping with disasters. / Ph. D.