The issue of indiscriminate urban expansion is not uncommon in Africa. It has created haphazard, unplanned, and unapproved development that negatively affected urban planning for cities in the Niger Delta Region in Nigeria. Using Stone's urban regime theory, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore from the perspective of developers, associations, and government agencies (referred to as stakeholders), the roots causes of indiscriminate urban development and their activities in the process in the Niger Delta Region. Data were collected through semi structured telephone interviews with 10 participants who had at least 5 years experience working in public and private organizations in the urban setting. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's procedure for thematic analysis. Findings included six themes of limited knowledge, passive role, recognition of experiencing the problem, contributing to the problem, weakness of regulatory framework, and lack of synergy in the process. The principal theme was limited knowledge of the roles and obligations of participants which impede participation in the planning process. The recommendations, if implemented, may result in positive changes and bring many benefits to city residents such as better housing and traffic systems, adequate sanitation and improved access to public services. To do so, government agencies in the urban sector should engage the stakeholders to create synergy. Following these recommendations may help resolve the issue of indiscriminate urban expansion, promote effective planning and management, and ensure good governance and sustainable development in the urban setting.

This thesis was inspired by the question of how the state addresses irregular challenges for its survival and reputation. It used an example of the confrontation between illegal armed groups (IAGs) operating in the North Caucasus and the Russian state in 2007-2014. Investigation started by asking to what extent do repressive and reconciliatory counter tactics decrease the level of violence produced by illegal armed groups? The thesis was situated in-between of deterrence and backlash theories to examine (in)effectiveness of repressive and reconciliatory policies. It accounted for (in)effectiveness by investigating whether the policy decreases or increases the level of insurgency-related violence; namely, whether it causes deterrence or backlash, in the case of repression or, alternatively, whether it causes conformity or backlash in the case of reconciliation. The thesis operationalised its main variables by disaggregating the strategy into separate repressive and reconciliatory tactics. It considered, on the one hand, three types of IAGs tactics: armed assault, bombings (suicide bombing, vehicle bomb, bomb placement, bomb tossing, firing, fake bomb) and hostage taking. One the other hand, the state tactics were divided into four categories: repressive indiscriminate (regime of counterterrorist operation, clash, and shelling), repressive discriminate (special operation, shooting, arrest, seizure, and detection), reconciliatory indiscriminate (involvement of civil society through dialogue, and socio-economic development), and reconciliatory discriminate (amnesty and reintegration). The thesis expected targeted repressive operations to suppress active IAGs members, whereas socio-economic incentives to contribute to maintaining the success of violent repressive operations. To test these hypotheses, the thesis relied on large empirical data, specially collected from the open sources, including 3270 episodes of IAG-initiated violence and 6114 governmental repressive actions. Data for reconciliatory efforts was taken from official statistics. The thesis used a generalized linear negative binomial and a generalized additive negative binomial model to assess the relationship between governmental policies and the level of violence. The thesis found that discriminate violence does indeed decrease attacks. However, it causes an immediate strong backlash effect at first, and only with considerable time and magnitude of repression eventually leads to the reduction of violence. The more discriminate repression is applied the less backlash it causes. Unlike repression, reconciliatory tactics produce a decrease in attacks. Thus, the thesis found partial support for both deterrence and backlash models. It, however, showed that deterrence effect overcomes initial backlash reaction.

This diploma thesis with the topic of ,,The Concept of Serious Harm in Refugee Law" had three basic objectives. The first one was to analyse single notions which belong to the concept of serious harm. The second objective was to compare the concept of serious harm under the Qualification Directive and under the Czech Asylum Act. By means of the interpretation of single notions of serious harm and the comparison of the Qualification Directive with the Czech Asylum Act, I managed to answer the question ,,who is protected by Article 15 of the Qualification Directive and the second section of paragraph 14a in the Czech Asylum Act," which was the third basic objective of this diploma thesis, and at the same time its research question. My diploma thesis is structured into 6 chapters, further it contains the list of abbreviations, the introduction, the conclusion, the list of literature, the Czech and English abstract, and key words. The first chapter deals with the evolution of the concept of serious harm since the year 2001 till the contemporary version of the Qualification Directive from the year 2011, and with the incorporation of this concept into the Czech Asylum Act. From the depiction of history of the concept of serious harm in this chapter, it resulted how uneasy it was for the member states of...