Since 1976, Syria has suffered two separate but in nature similar rebellions which was different in terms of spreading, impact and size. The existing literature fails to compare these rebellions and answer the question on how two similar uprising can produce different outcomes. The objective of this study is to answer that question and produce a foundation that is usable when studying future uprisings in the Middle East and Syria. This is a qualitative research that uses multiple case studies that are compared in order to fulfil the objective of this study. The research if a desk study and uses an abductive approach. Two different theoretical concepts have been used in order to understand the dynamics that shaped the two rebellions. These are Frank H. Zimmerman's theory on why insurgencies fail and Frederick D. Miller's model of movement decline. The authors pinpoint different factors that makes a uprising prone to failure or success and these factors has been used as a lens when analysing the findings of this essay. The findings of this essay suggest that key differences that made an impact on the conflicts where the amount of local support, external support and the role of social media. In order to fully understand the dynamics that shapes modern rebellions, further research on the role of globalisation and social media is conflict must be conducted.

Within a climate of continual change this study offers insights into the academic pressures experienced by rural adolescents to achieve at school. In the often challenging transition from childhood to adulthood expectations from others place additional pressures on adolescents' lives. To better understand these pressures, I conducted a qualitative study of six students (ages nine to 15) and their teachers in the Middle Years of Schooling within rural Victoria, Australia. Students were studied prior to the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) in order to examine the pressures on students facing the Middle Years of Schooling. The study was carried out over a 6 month period using a Naturalistic Inquiry process with semi-structured interviews and participant observation. This allowed access into the participants' subjective insights. A Collective case study approach was employed to situate the information in its holistic environment and offer thick and information rich narratives depicting the experiences of these early adolescents. The case studies also involved examination of the school experiences of the early adolescents. Academic pressure was then broadly viewed in light of these experiences and recommendations offered. The findings from this research revealed that the early adolescents in the study all experienced degrees of academic pressure and demonstrated varied abilities to cope with these pressures. External support provided by parents, the school, teachers and peers tended to provide support more than fostering resilience.

Due to the digitalization era and challenges faced by the healthcare sector, Medical Information Systems are now being extensively used at hospitals. The implementation of the systems is a complex task which entails a need for careful considerations from a managerial view, since the main purpose with implementing the systems is for managerial control. One of the things management should consider is the professional aspect. The nursing profession is a highly specific one, and this could implicate special considerations. The aim of this master’s thesis is to take on a sociotechnical approach towards the implementation of Medical Information Systems and investigate how the nursing profession is affecting the implementation process, and what it may implicate for hospital management. To answer the research question a qualitative approach has been chosen. The empirical data has been gathered through semi-structured interviews with nurses from the case organization. The result implies that the nursing profession have a substantial impact on the implementation process. Instead of embracing the instructions and support offered by management, the nurses develop their own way of working within the system.

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The internationalisation of conflicts has made the study of the effects of external support a prominent subfield within peace and conflict studies. How supporting states affect conflict strategies and changes the conflict dynamic has been the prime concern of this thesis. I have argued that when a government actor is supported by an external state with high soft power, in the form of political and economic capital, the government is less inclined to use one-sided violence as a conflict strategy. By using the principal- agent theory as a model to explain the relationship between the supporter and the supported state, I have found support for my argument. The government of the Central African Republic has conducted low levels of one-sided violence when supported by the soft power France. The government of South Sudan, on the other hand, has conducted high levels of one-sided violence when supported by the non-soft power Uganda. By coming to this conclusion, this paper has introduced soft power as an important concept in peace and conflict studies while also helping to elucidate the role of external supporters in conflict strategies. Future research should develop on the findings in this thesis by controlling for other possible explanations to why one-sided violence decreases depending on the characteristics of the support and include a greater number of cases.

How does external support affect the number of rebel groups active in a conflict? The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether there is a systematic relationship between external support and civil wars with more than one rebel group active, referred to as multiparty conflicts. Drawing on previous literature on the causes of such conflicts, I argue that external support increases the probability of multiparty conflicts by providing resources to nascent rebel groups while also causing polarization and inhibiting rebel alliances. Additionally, I argue governments involved in interstate rivalries are more likely to be involved in multipart conflicts, as the government’s rivals are more likely than other states to support the rebels. I test these theories using global data on the number of actors in intrastate armed conflicts 1975-2009 using logistic regression and Random Forest machine learning. I find that conflicts with external supporters have an increased probability of being multiparty conflicts. This holds true for both support from states to the government and the rebels, as well as support from non-state groups to the rebels. I also find that governments involved in interstate rivalries are more likely to be involved in multiparty conflicts.

Introduction: External support behaviours, which include leaning (supporting with the non-task hand) or bracing (supporting with the body), are frequently employed by workers in manufacturing settings. However, current ergonomic assessment tools are limited by our limited understanding of these behaviours. Recent studies have investigated these behaviours, however, the designs of these studies are limited in their applicability to real-world scenarios. The purpose of this study was to assess how different task parameters affect the prediction of external support behaviours, as well as the effect of support on task hand, and body, kinematics and kinetics, in a minimally constrained experimental design. Methods: Female participants (n = 18) performed a series of one-handed maximal exertions (in the six orthogonal directions), and one precision task, in four hand Locations. Trials either featured support (as chosen by the participant), or no support. Results & Discussion: Three logistic regression models were developed, with inputs from individual and task characteristics, and they correctly predicted the occurrence of leaning, bracing, or simultaneous leaning and bracing, 74-86% of the time. Leaning and/or bracing were found to provide: 1) oppositional forces to increase task hand force generation, 2) balance, by countering destabilizing moments about the feet, and 3) a reduction in moment arm of the task hand force, with respect to the upper body joints, by bringing the shoulder closer to the task hand. Participants were able to exert 64.8% more force at the task hand as a result of support. Leaning hand placement depended on the task force direction and location. However, the positioning of the leaning hand varied very little. Finally, the precision condition showed that fine motor demands may also affect external support choice. / Thesis / Master of Science in Kinesiology

The intentional killing of civilians by rebel groups is an often observed phenomenon in civil wars. An aspect of civil war that may influence this phenomenon is support by foreign actors to rebel groups. This thesis aims to answer the research question of how external support to rebel groups affects violence against civilians. The theoretical framework used to answer the research question will be built upon two conflicting logics in the current literature. Based on this framework, I argue that the key to explaining how external support affects violence against civilians, lies in the heterogeneity of support and that the various support types can be indexed into two categories, leading to two hypotheses: 1) external support that allows rebels to focus on governance will result in lower levels of rebel one-sided violence, and 2) external support to rebel groups that creates independency from the civilian population results in higher levels of rebel one-sided violence. To test the hypotheses, this thesis uses a quantitative research method and NBRMs using UCDP datasets. The results show that while some types of support align with the expected outcomes, others yield unexpected results, underscoring the importance of considering the varied effects of external support.

Abstract: What explains the use of violence in extra-institutional political campaigns? Domestic groups challenge host states using both nonviolent and violent tactics. While Gandhi’s struggle for India’s independence is perhaps the most famous example of nonviolence, many of today’s bloody civil wars also started out as nonviolent movements. In a world eager to support the self-determination of marginalized groups, both nonviolent and violent groups receive support from foreign actors. Despite this, theories on the use of violence by these groups remain untested empirically.  This paper uses panel data to quantitatively investigate the proposition that external support of extra-institutional political movements causes an increase in the use of violence. A logistic regression model finds no statistically significant relationship between the provision of external support and an increased use of violence in primarily nonviolent campaigns. An additional test on a sample of violent non-state groups finds that battle-related deaths increased when external support was provided in the previous year, a result significant at 99% confidence.

Many civil wars are illustrative of wider international tensions and connections that transcend state borders. States often intervene to influence the trajectory and outcome of civil conflicts by providing external support to warring parties. This assistance ranges from direct military intervention to the provision of weapons, training, funds, safe havens, intelligence, logistics and other critical resources. This dissertation contains four individual essays that each seeks to advance our knowledge of state support to rebel movements. The first essays (I and II) add to our understanding of how external state support influences conflict dynamics while the latter (III and IV) begin to unpack the political decision-making process behind decisions that alter the original support commitment. Essay I evaluates whether state support to rebels increases the probability of civil war negotiations being initiated. The findings question a widespread belief among policymakers that support can foster negotiations. Essay II explores if external support influences the risk of conflict recurrence. It finds that state support to rebels can increase the risk of conflict recurrence in the short-term while there is no equivalent effect of support provided to governments. Essay III is the first global analysis of support termination and it thereby opens up an entirely new research field. The results suggest that the causes related to the initiation of support and its termination are largely distinct while the transition from the Cold War and the absence of ethnic kinship ties offer some insights into when states are more likely to terminate support. Essay IV unpacks the political decision-making process of the United States’ support to the armed opposition in Nicaragua in the 1980s and in Syria in the 2010s. The results indicate that adverse feedback functions as a trigger for increasing previous commitments as long as policy failure can be attributed to external actors, while reduced support is often a result of attributing failure to the state sponsor’s own actions. Taken together, the essays make significant contributions to advance our understanding of biased third-party interventions, conflict recurrence, civil war negotiations, foreign policy decision-making and state sponsorship of terrorism.