The analysis of security policy, in its variations, regularly deals with the question of what each actor wants to promote in domestic or international politics, in other words, what is his interest. The term "national interest" is not an abstract category and a rhetorical turn legitimizing government action in front of the public audience or in dispute with political opposition. One of the aims of the presented thesis is to present the concept of national interest as a useful tool enabling closer research of domestic policy within the security context. Our main thematic focus, in which we examine the constitution of national interest, is the Czech counterterrorism policy in the context of the reaction of the Czech government and security forces to the terrorist attacks in Paris in autumn 2015 and in Brussels in March of the following year. An extraordinary measure after the attacks in Brussels in the form of the deployment of the Czech Army performing police tasks in mixed patrols in three Czech cities is for us a key manifestation of counterterrorism policy. This constitution of the security policy, we are further investigating. The main motivation is to explain the reasons why the mentioned security measure took place, which has no analogs in the history of the Czech Republic. We conclude that...

In July of 1853, Chief Wakara's band of Utes clashed in a series of violent confrontations with the Mormon settlers. This conflict is known as the Walker War. Many complex factors contributed to this war. After some earlier violence between Mormons and different bands of Utes between 1847 and 1851, the Mormons continued their quick expansion settling on Ute lands. From 1851 to 1853 Mormon and Ute relations continued to decline as Mormons expanded their settlements occupying Ute hunting grounds. In addition to these land encroachments, new laws were enacted regulating trade between the Spanish and Utes by Brigham Young. The most notable regulation on trade prohibited the Spanish and Ute slave trade. All these trade regulations hurt the Ute economy, particularly the most powerful equestrian Ute band, the Cheverets led by Chief Wakara. In the spring of 1853 Governor Brigham Young ordered out the state militia to arrest Mexican traders and to capture Wakara for engaging in the slave trade. Wakara had previously established a friendly relationship with Young and had invited the Mormons to settle his lands in Sanpete. Wakara had become committed to peaceful relations and cooperation with Young and the Mormon people. Wakara remained true to his desire for friendly relations even after seeing his economic status undermined by Mormon settlers. Young as well was committed to staying on peaceful terms with the Utes. Their followers, on the other hand, had difficulties overcoming the cultural divide. After the murder of a member of Wakara's band in July of 1853 by settler James Ivie, Wakara's band waged a series of raids against Mormon settlements. Wakara himself, however, was not involved in the war and continually tried to sue for peace. The war has been mislabeled with Wakara's name; he was not really involved in the violence. Yet it was indeed a war. The war had a great impact on the Mormon settlers. Settlers abandoned their homes and had to move into forts. For the Mormons involved, this conflict was neither small nor inconsequential; it was a major disruption involving a great portion of the Utah Territory.

Le processus de paix ivoirien a débuté en 2002 et a fait intervenir divers acteurs. Dans le cadre de ce travail, nous nous sommes intéressés à un type d’acteurs en particulier : les organisations miliciennes. Pour ces acteurs armés non étatiques, il a été question de revenir sur leur inclusion et les mécanismes mis en place pour favoriser cette inclusion. Dans notre analyse, nous avançons que ces acteurs, en raison des dynamiques qui favorisent leur émergence et de leurs caractères dans le contexte Ivoirien, sont absents des négociations formelles. Toutefois, cette absence des négociations formelles ne signifie pas qu’ils sont totalement exclus du processus. Notre argument sert à montrer qu’ils ont été inclus au processus par le biais de mécanismes informels. Nous analysons cette inclusion informelle pour en faire ressortir les caractéristiques mais aussi les limites. / The Ivorian peace process began in 2002 and involved various actors. In this work, we are interested in one type of actor in particular: militia organizations. For these non-State armed actors, we wanted to understand their inclusion and the mechanisms put in place to promote this inclusion. In our analysis, we argue that these actors, because of the dynamics that favor their emergence and their characteristics in the Ivorian context, are absent from formal negotiations. However, this absence from formal negotiations does not mean that they are totally excluded from the process. Our argument shows that they were brought into the process through informal mechanisms. We analyze this informal inclusion to highlight its characteristics but also its limits.

Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies))--Stellenbosch University, 2009. / As the ethnic militias increased in strength after the transition to democracy, voices were raised whether they could pose a threat to the consolidation of democracy. In order to understand the problems that ethnic militias pose for the consolidation of democracy we try to show how they were established and how they have influenced the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria. Further, we ask if the ethnic militias have outplayed their role in Nigerian society. The main results show that the ethnic militias arose because of necessity, in an environment where ethno-nationalism was prevalent because of a repressive state’s inability to take care of its own people. The violent activities of the ethnic militias was not good for democracy in the short run, but as a counterweight to the state the ethnic militias played an important role in what can be described as civil society taken up arms. This militarising of society seems to have forced the state to take the ethnic militias more seriously. Hence, it can be claimed that the ethnic militias served as a midwife to the current Nigerian transitional democracy. However, as the state recognised the ethnic militias as a part of the political realm, and not just violent groups, the legitimacy for the ethnic militias eroded. The Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), which was the most influential ethnic militias in Nigeria, has now changed its agenda, and has not gone back to being the socio-cultural organisation as they were formed as. There is an important role for the OPC and the Niger Delta ethnic militias as a counterweight to the state, but dialogue should be the main way of communication, as violence will only foster violence. It seems clear that the state needs to take the first step in order to make this happen. The conclusion is that ethnic militias have had, and still have an effect on the consolidation of democracy by holding the state responsible for its actions, and by punishing the state when it does not act according to its people’s wishes. It can be claimed that they forced out democracy by highlighting the flaws of the Nigerian state even if the way they operated, was not democratic. By highlighting corruption, lack of law enforcement and unnecessary use of force, they were able to bring down the authoritarian rule and make way for the transition to democracy. However, they do not seem to pose a threat to consolidation in the short term, rather they can have a positive effect, as they can act a counterweight to the ruling elite and other forces obstructing democracy. As we show, ethnic militias are and have been a part of civil society, and the focus of the future should be how to incorporate them into civil society, especially the Niger Delta ethnic militias as they are still active. Ethnic militias (except for some ones in the Niger Delta) were a brief phenomena in Nigerian history, and the focus should be on understanding the reason for them coming into being, in order to avoid it happening again. This thesis tries to give a holistic view of the Nigerian political situation. This thesis fills a gap in the literature concerning ethnic militias, by incorporating the most important factors into a framework. This makes it easier to make an accurate conclusion on how they have affected democracy, and questions the opinion that militias were only harmful to Nigerian development. It is the author’s opinion that this thesis will give scholars a more nuanced perspective of the ethnic militias, and lead to more accurate research in the future.

This study examines poor travellers who were on the move during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The focus is the County of Devon, with Exeter dealt with only briefly as it was a separate county. It is shown that the travellers, including numbers of Irish in the seventeenth century and foreign-born, particularly in the eighteenth century, were affected by a number of factors, but that the most important influence on their numbers and types was the incidence of wars. Economic factors, such as food supply, were of some importance, but the economy too was influenced by the effects of wars. Legislation also was found to have had less influence than expected. However, the legislation effective from 1700 did have a marked impact on the documentation available. The main sources used for this study are the parochial documents provided by churchwardens’ accounts of payments made to travellers in need and some of those of the parish overseers. These are supplemented by the records of Devon’s County Quarter Sessions. A combination of Devon’s geography, its strong international maritime connections and the influence of wars and their locations combined to affect the chronological and spatial variations in the numbers and types of travellers through the two centuries.

République du Congo, l’armée, en tant qu’ensemble de structures et de moyens militaires institutionnellement affectés à la mise en œuvre de la politique décidée par les autorités politiques pour assurer et garantir la défense nationale, est loin d’être l’auteur exclusif des coups d’Etat, même si, systématiquement, elle profite des conséquences politiques attachées à ceux-ci. En réalité, les coups d’Etat y sont la résultante d’une lutte entre plusieurs champs. Dans cette lutte, les acteurs des coups d’Etat, en fonction de leurs corpus idéologiques respectifs, mettent en place des stratégies dont la particularité n’est pas de se limiter au champ bureaucratique mais d’engager également la société appréhendée au regard de leurs groupes ethniques ou régionaux d’appartenance. Ainsi, mobilisent-ils, non seulement leurs propres capitaux (diplômes, profession), mais aussi les ressources de leurs groupes ethniques ou régionaux en vue de réaliser la conquête ou la conservation du pouvoir. Par le jeu complexe des solidarités idéologiques, ethniques ou corporatistes, les acteurs politiques tissent des alliances et, selon le cas, participent ou s’opposent à l’exécution des coups d’Etat. Sous ce rapport, les coups d’Etat, qui supposent une importante mobilisation stratégique, politique et matérielle de la part de ceux qui en forment le projet, se confondent à un mode de conquête du pouvoir assimilable formellement à l’élection, et s’inscrivent dans ce que Marcel Mauss nomme les faits sociaux totaux. Les leaders politiques appartenant aux ethnies minoritaires, ne pouvant accéder au pouvoir par voie démocratique, élaborent une stratégie de conquête de pouvoir prenant appui sur l’armée. Ainsi, détournée de sa mission traditionnelle de protection du territoire national face aux agressions extérieures, l’armée voit sa valeur opérationnelle diminuée. / In Republic of Congo, the army, as a whole of structures and average soldiers institutionally assigned to the implementation of the policy decided by the political authorities to ensure and guarantee national defense, is far from being the exclusive author of the coups d'etat, even if, systematically, it benefits from the political consequences attached to those. Actually, the coups d'etat are there the resultant of a fight between several fields. In this fight, the actors of the coups d'etat, according to their respective ideological corpora, set up strategies whose characteristic is not to limit themselves to the bureaucratic field but to also engage the company apprehended taking into consideration their ethnic or regional group of membership. Thus, they mobilize, not only their own capital (diplomas, profession), but also resources of their ethnic or regional groups in order to carry out the conquest or the conservation of the power. By the complex play of ideological solidarity, ethnic or corporatists, the political actors weave alliances and, according to the case, take part or are opposed to the execution of the coups d'etat. Under this report, the coups d'etat, which suppose an important strategic mobilization, political and material on behalf of those which form the project of it, merge with a mode of conquest of the power comparable formally to the election, and fit in what Marcel Mauss names the total social facts. The political leaders belonging to the minority ethnic groups, not being able to reach the power by democratic way, work out a strategy of conquest of fascinating power support on the army. Thus, diverted its traditional mission of protection of the national territory vis-a-vis the external aggressions, the army sees its decreased operational value.

This thesis examines the role of national defence in British parliamentary politics between 1794 and 1812. It suggests that previous analyses of the late eighteenth-century political milieu insufficiently explore the impact of war on the structure of the state. Work by J.E. Cookson, Linda Colley, J.C.D. Clark, and Paul Langford depicts a decentralised state that had little direct involvement in developing a popular “British” patriotism. Here I argue that the threat of a potential French invasion during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France provoked a drive for centralisation. Nearly all the defence measures enacted during the period gave the government a much greater degree of control over British manpower and resources. The readiness of successive governments to involve large sections of the nation in the war effort through military service, financial contributions, and appeals to the British “spirit”, resulted in a much more inclusive sense of citizenship in which questions of national participation and political franchise were unlinked. National identity was also affected, and the focus on military defence of the British Isles influenced political attitudes towards the regular army. By 1810, however, the nation was disillusioned by the lengthy struggle with France. The result of lingering political weakness was that attention shifted from national defence onto domestic corruption and venality. The aftermath of the Irish Act of Union, too, demonstrated the limits of attempts to centralise the policy of the whole United Kingdom. Significantly, however, the debates over the relationship between the centre and the localities in the 1830s and 1840s, and the response to a new French invasion threat in the 1850s and 1860s, revived themes addressed during the 1790s and 1800s. The political reaction to the invasion threats between 1794 and 1812 ultimately had more in common with a Victorian state bureaucracy than an eighteenth-century ancien régime.

In 1655, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell's Council of State commissioned a group of army officers for the purpose of "securing the peace of the commonwealth." Under the authority of the Instrument of Government, a written constitution not sanctioned by Parliament, the Council sent army major-generals into the counties to raise new horse militias and to support them financially with a tax on Royalists which the army officers would also collect. In counties such as Essex--the focus of this study--the major-generals were assisted in their work by small groups of commissioners, mostly local men "well-affected" to the Interregnum government. In addition to their militia and tax duties, the men were instructed to see to the implementation and furtherance of a variety of central government policies. Barely a year after its inception, a bill sanctioning the scheme was voted down in January 1657 by a Parliament unconvinced that the work done by the major-generals was in the best interests of the nation. This thesis examines the development and inception of the major-generals initiative by the Council of State, the work the major-generals and their commissioners engaged in, and the nature and cause of the reaction to their efforts in the shires. In the years and centuries following the Stuart Restoration, the major-generals were frequently portrayed as agents of Cromwellian tyranny, and more recently scholars have argued that the officers were primarily concerned with the promulgation of a godly reformation. This study looks at the aims and work of the major-generals largely through an analysis of state papers and Essex administrative records, and it concludes that the Council and officers were preoccupied more with threats to order and stability than with morals. Additionally, by examining the court records and work of the justices of the peace in Essex, this study shows that in regard to improving order the major-generals' work was unremarkable for its efficacy and but little different than previous law- and statute-enforcement activity traditionally carried out by local administrators. Based on this assessment of the major-generals' efforts to improve order as both limited and completely un-revolutionary, this thesis argues that the strongly negative reaction to the major-generals by the parliamentary class was due more to the officers' and government's encroachment on gentry power and local privilege than either the abrogation of the liberties of the people or any modest efforts to foist godliness on the shires. Religion was a major issue during the English Civil Wars, but the demise of one of the Interregnum government's most ambitious attempts to improve security in the localities was rooted not in sectarian distempers but rather in the gentry's preoccupation with keeping central government from meddling in local matters or taxing anyone in their class without parliamentary approval.

No description available.

Die vorliegende Arbeit zielt darauf ab, zwei Forschungslücken in der Literatur über Bürgerkriege zu schließen. Erstens, die Analyse der Strukturen nicht-staatlicher bewaffneter Gruppen. Zweitens, die Untersuchung der Politik von Milizen, als Form nicht-staatlicher Gruppen, denen in gegenwärtigen Bürgerkriegen eine zunehmende Bedeutung zukommt. Diese beiden Bereiche werden mit Hilfe einer historisch vergleichenden Analyse am Beispiel von zwei Milizen, die im sudanesischen und libanesischen Bürgerkrieg kämpften, untersucht. Die "Popular Defense Forces", 1989 von der Regierung des Sudan mobilisiert, wurden zum Sammelbecken für undisziplinierte und teilautonome militärische Einheiten, die schwerste Kriegsverbrechen begingen. Die "Lebanese Forces", eine maronitisch-nationalistische Miliz, wurde von einer Koalition konservativer christlicher Parteien gegründet. Nach dem Zusammenbruch des Staates 1975-6 wurde diese Miliz zu einer autonomen politischen Einheit mit einem territorial abgegrenzten Kanton im Osten von Beirut. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Prozesse und Strategien, die diesen Milizen die Etablierung von Herrschaft ermöglichte. Die beiden Gruppen entwickelten sich zu Organisationen, die die zu verteidigenden Gebiete beherrschten und mit staatlichen Geldgebern verbündet waren, aber auch in Konkurrenz zu ihnen standen. Diese Arbeit identifiziert drei Mechanismen, die die Entwicklungen von Milizen im Laufe ihrer Zeit bestimmen. Der Erste erklärt die Formierung von Milizen als ein Bricolage von politischen und nicht-politischen Antworten auf Unsicherheit. Der Zweite erklärt, wie sich Milizen in hybride Organisationen, von zentraler Mobilisierungseinheit und lokal eingebettete Organisationen, entwickeln. Der Dritte führt die Kontrolle des Zentrums über die lokalen Organisationen auf die Macht über Ressourcen zurück. Die Arbeit schließt mit dem Entwurf eines alternativen analytischen Modells für die Untersuchung von Bürgerkriegen. / This thesis provides an analysis of the organizational politics of state supporting armed groups, and demonstrates how group cohesion and institutionalization impact on the patterns of violence witnessed within civil wars. Using an historical comparative method, strategies of leadership control are examined in the processes of organizational evolution of the Popular Defence Forces, an Islamist Nationalist militia, and the allied Lebanese Forces, a Christian Nationalist militia. The first group was a centrally coordinated network of irregular forces which fielded ill-disciplined and semi-autonomous military units, and was responsible for severe war crimes. Equally responsible for war crimes, such as the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Shi''a and Palestinian civilians in 1982, the second group, nonetheless, became an autonomous military formation with an established territorial canton with a high degree of control over military units. After first analysing the political and institutional context of formation of these two groups, detailed case study analysis illustrates how political-military leaderships consolidated internal authority over combat units. At first, this authority relied on a bricolage of norms, motivations and institutions, as highly diverse, loosely coordinated actors mobilised in response to insecurity. As key leadership figures emerged, these groups evolved into hybrid organisations, divided between central organisations and locally embedded units operating according to localised security arenas decoupled from central military or political strategy. Central authority was then consolidated through a process of progressive institutionalisation and expansion, as centralised control was established, often violently, over resources, recruitment and discipline. This thesis shows, how militias, formed in allegiance with the state evolved into organizations rivalling state sovereignty and exploiting the communities which they claimed to defend.