' š P a g e | 1 P a g e | 2 ' ' 's P a g e | 3 ……………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………… …………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… P a g e | 4 Master's Thesis Proposal š 's The aim of this work is to evaluate whether or not the common knowledge prompt that the international arena is at fault for most destabilizations of countries with a geopolitical interest is true in this case. 's 's P a g e | 5 ' ' ' Yonghong, D., & Hongchao, L. (2020). Rivalry and Cooperation: A New "Great Game" in SUN, Yun (2012), China's Strategic Misjudgement on Myanmar, in: Journal of Current - P a g e | 6 ' P a g e | 7 on their society's well that prevent the country's consolidation, the P a g e | 8 ' Myanmar as a state has seen its importance rise in the general public's scope because the mass media echoed widely the latest coup by it's own national military: " Myanmar's elected leaders, including de facto head of state Aung San Suu Kyi and members " P a g e | 9 favour their ethnic in detriment of others, and made their power so prominent...

Can the success of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq be applied to other counter-insurgency conflicts, or is it an exemplary case? Using case studies including Iraq and Afghanistan, it will be examined whether or not militias can be can be used to fight counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and generally to other conflicts. It may not work in Afghanistan, and certainly presents a Catch-22 situation, but it may be applicable in certain situations in other conflicts under certain conditions.

Can the success of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq be applied to other counter-insurgency conflicts, or is it an exemplary case? Using case studies including Iraq and Afghanistan, it will be examined whether or not militias can be can be used to fight counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and generally to other conflicts. It may not work in Afghanistan, and certainly presents a Catch-22 situation, but it may be applicable in certain situations in other conflicts under certain conditions.

The district of Sacsamarca, located in the province of Huanca Sancos in the region of Ayacucho in Peru, was one of the most affected districts by the Internal Armed Conflict during the eighties (CAI, in Spanish). Violence, as an exogenous variable, transformed the political, economic, and social land- scape within this community, and left tremendous losses that still have not been overcome. This paper analyzes the loss of agency among Sacsamarca’s inhabitants, within a framework of social resilience. For this purpose, we examine three crucial factors that were altered by the CAI: economic, politicaland demographic. / El distrito de Sacsamarca, ubicado en la provincia de Huanca Sancos, departamento de Ayacucho, fueuno de los lugares más afectados por el conflicto armado interno - CAI de la década de 1980 en el Perú. La violencia como variable exógena transformó los procesos políticos, económicos y sociales de este lugar y dejó grandes fracturas en la comunidad que no han podido ser superados en la actualidad. El presente trabajo analiza la pérdida de agencia de los habitantes sacsamarquinos, en un marco de resiliencia social a partir del CAI. Para ello, se examinarán tres factores que fueron alterados por el CAI: económicos, políticos y demográficos.

The refugee crisis has been one of the main foci in western media the last years. Many European countries are raising their concerns on the refugees and how they are not able to help them. This thesis is a desk study which seeks to examine the Syrian refugee influx upon Lebanon.  Michael Brown’s book about reasons about internal conflicts have been the guideline to mark out any eventual internal conflicts a big refugee influx can eventually stir upon a country. The thesis will try to analyse and figure out if the refugee crisis will fuel the already existing sectarian tensions in the country. The do not clearly establish whether the refugee influx in Lebanon will potentially produce a new civil war or not. The refugee crisis has proven itself to be a burden for Lebanon within many of its internal sectors and the political tensions run higher now than earlier. The possibility for a renewed civil war is therefore not impossible but at the same time it might as well be avoided completely.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / State practice and literature suggest that devolution of power can address the main challenges of underdevelopment, internal conflict and abuse of centralised power in developing states. However, this thesis advances the argument that the design features of devolved government for these purposes are not always compatible. Accordingly, while there are complementary and neutral design features in the three designs, trade-offs have to be made between the unique design features in order to ensure the effective pursuit of the three purposes through a single system of devolved government. Kenya, the case study for this inquiry, confirms the international trend as its major challenges over the last 50 years have been underdevelopment, internal conflict and abuse of central power. As such, development, ethnic harmony, and the limiting of central power featured prominently throughout the entire constitutional review process as purposes to be pursued by means of devolution of power. To this end, the devolution of state power is one of the central elements of the current constitutional dispensation in Kenya. There are trade-offs made in Kenya‟s devolution design in order to accommodate the three purposes of devolution. However, the overall result has been that the emphasis falls on development at the expense of conflict resolution and limiting central power. Nevertheless, regardless of the trade-offs and nature of the final design, the design‟s effectiveness or lack thereof may depend very much on factors external to the design. Lack of political will to make devolution work can negate the effectiveness of even the most perfect design; by same token, political will could make an apparently bad design effective. In practice, therefore, effectiveness depends on an array of other context-specific factors. / South Africa

This thesis aims to test the causal connection between internal security threats and political intervention by the military in states which have recently transitioned to democracy. In order to investigate this, a comparative case study is conducted between the recent case of Myanmar and the case of the Philippines in the 1980s with the aim of investigating how the presence of internal conflict in the two countries has impacted the level of military influence post-transition. This is investigated through a qualitative analysis of the countries’ constitutions as well as statements by political and military leaders in order to investigate how the issues of internal conflict and the role of the military are defined, perceived and portrayed. The results of the study demonstrate that differences in these areas may explain why the military in Myanmar has managed to intervene more successfully. <img src="blob:https://uu.diva-portal.org/f8bb8d04-2f8c-4176-a36d-2e9876197374" />

In the aftermath of the bloody twenty-year internal conflict in Peru, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, or CVR) documented the massive human rights violations by Sendero Luminoso and the Peruvian state. The CVR contextualized these abuses by producing a broad historical narrative which has fomented the creation of a new discourse in Peruvian cultural production. This thesis is concerned with how the CVR and the post-conflict search for reconciliation have influenced contemporary Peruvian literature. This paper will focus on the ‘Redención' trilogy by novelist Alonso Cueto. The three novels explore notions of forgiveness and reconciliation between perpetrators and victims of the conflict. Beginning with La hora azul (2005), the first chapter investigates the reliance on neoliberal reconciliation logic in the CVR (monetary reparations, etc.) as well as the gestures towards affective exchanges. It also explores the ways in which La hora azul stages these reliances within restitution discourse in Peru. In the second chapter, I examine La pasajera (2015) and further explore the ways in which reconciliation is tied to both affect and neoliberal logic. This leads to a discussion on how affect and the free-market work together, rather than as competing systems of exchange and how Cueto emphasizes the proximity of the victim and the perpetrator in the novel. Finally, I conclude by analyzing La viajera del viento (2016). This chapter continues to focus on the proximity of the victim and the perpetrator and how this ethically uncomfortable discourse may actually make way for new modes of forgiveness between victims and perpetrators.

Lucidity is a novella set in the near future of a man living in a city in the United States as a successful businessman. The novella criticizes the idea of consumerism through Aurora, a character who believes that a drug is being introduced into the water and food supply by the corporate-backed government. Characters find advertising to be almost irresistible, experience strange cravings for things like cheap beer, and are generally preoccupied with the latest products. James Simmons, the protagonist of the novella, finds himself in the lap of luxury. He has a job that pays well, a penthouse apartment, a fast car, and women. Even though he has the material riches that society tells him he needs to be happy, he knows that something is missing, something is wrong with the world in which he lives. For reasons unknown to him at the time, James is fired from his job and sets out on a journey to discover why. Over the course of his journey, he is finally able to begin piecing together the nature of deeper questions about himself that he never had a chance to answer.

This dissertation combines psychology with peace and conflict research in a cross-disciplinary approach to reconciliation processes after intrastate armed conflict. Two overarching contributions are made to the field of reconciliation research. The first is conceptual and methodological. The vague concept of reconciliation is defined and operationalized (Paper I), and a method is proposed for how reconciliation may be studied systematically at the national level (Paper II). By discussing what reconciliation is and how we should measure it, comparative research on reconciliation is facilitated which is imperative if we wish to learn of its promises and pitfalls in post-conflict peacebuilding. The second contribution is empirical. There has been an assumption that truth telling is healing and thereby will lead to reconciliation; healing is the assumed link between truth and reconciliation. This assumption was investigated in two studies in Rwanda in 2006. A multistage, stratified cluster random survey of 1,200 adults was conducted to assess whether witnessing in the gacaca, the Rwandan village tribunals for truth and reconciliation, was beneficial for psychological health; thereby investigating the claim that truth telling is healing (Paper III). The results of the survey are disconcerting. Witnesses in the gacaca suffered from significantly higher levels of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder than non-witnesses also when controlling for important predictors for psychological ill-health such as gender or trauma exposure. To acquire a more comprehensive understanding of the experience of witnessing in the gacaca, in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 women genocide survivors who had witnessed in the gacaca (Paper IV). The results of this study challenge the claim that truth telling is healing, suggesting instead that there are risks for the individuals on whom truth-telling processes depend. Traumatization, ill-health, isolation, and insecurity dominate the lives of the testifying women. Insecurity as a result of the truth-telling process emerged as one of the most crucial issues at stake. This dissertation presents a novel understanding of the complexity of reconciliation in post-conflict peacebuilding, demonstrating that truth and reconciliation processes may entail more risks than were previously known. The results of this dissertation can be used to improve the study and the design of truth and reconciliation processes after civil war and genocide.