A concentrated reading of Benjamin Britten's Nocturne through details of the composer's biography can lead to new perspectives on the composer's identity. The method employed broadens current understandings of Britten's personality and its relationship to the music. After creating a context for this kind of work within Britten scholarship, each chapter explores a specific aspect of Britten's identity through the individual songs of the Nocturne. Chapter 2 focuses on how Britten used genres in a pastoral style to create his own British identity. Chapter 3 concentrates on the complex relationship between Britten's homosexuality and his pacifism. Chapter 4 aims to achieve a deeper understanding of Britten's idealization of innocence. The various aspects of Britten's personality are related to one another in the Conclusion.

Japan adopted a new legislation in 2016 which indicated a shift in Japanese security and foreign policy. Since the end of World War 2, the Japanese constitution has renounced war, threat, or use of force as a means of settling international disputes with other nations. Possessing military capabilities for anything other than self-defense were also restricted. This has caused several implications for Japan's foreign policy. While it allowed for more resources to be allocated to the reconstruction of the country after World War 2, Japan could never send its troops abroad to defend Japanese nationals or allies. However, that changed in 2014 when Shinzo Abe and his government began working on reinterpreting the constitution leading to the 2015 defense legislation “Legislation for Peace and Security” which allowed Japan for the first time in 70 years to send troops overseas to its allies for collective self-defense. This study is an analysis of the decision making process behind the Japanese foreign policy decision to expand its military’s capabilities and international cooperation. This study utilises foreign policy analysis to analyse both domestic and international factors which could have contributed to the Japanese foreign policy decision.  This study's conclusions were based on several factors: Firstly, the change in the geopolitical landscape in East Asia as a result of an emerging China and the beheading of two Japanese journalists, highlighted the restrictions imposed by article 9. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces wouldn’t be able to cooperate militarily with its allies, nor could it help its nationals abroad. With the help of its majorities in both the upper and lower houses of the National Diet, Abe’s government was able to expand the capabilities of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces whilst still maintaining Japan’s pacifist security policy. The Legislation for Peace and Security was perceived to not challenge the decades of Japanese pacifism whilst strengthening Japan's military capabilities.

This essay deals with Swedish neutrality- and ideology discourse during the early cold war years, when a group of Swedish left-wing intellectuals advocated a third position (den tredje ståndpunkten); a rejection of both sides in the cold war. This third position is, within the premises of this essay, partly regarded as a piece in a larger ideological puzzle, in which a middle point or a third way between capitalism and socialism was sought during the twentieth century. In the early Cold War context, the third ideological alternative also came to be defined in geopolitical terms; as a middle way between the US and the Soviet Union. The Swedish third position was never a complete political program or distinctly defined political movement. It reflects many different aspects of the early Cold War reality in a Swedish context: the feeling of homelessness among the political left after the outcome of the Soviet communistic experiment; post-World War two pessimism and exhaustion; the immense fear of an atomic war; the ideological conflict over Swedish national identity; the construction of the cold war dichotomy and the resistance to this hegemonic construction. The proponents of the third position advocated continued neutrality with an idealistic and pacifistic approach, as a way to prolonged world peace. They also saw the US and the USSR as equally aggressive, power-driven, and according to a few of them, equally unfree and undemocratic. They did not totally reject the idea of a ‘communist threat’, but rather did put this threat side by side with the ‘capitalist threat’. They thus went far beyond the official Swedish neutral policy, which was much more aligned towards the west, and according to which the neutral country could very well sympathise with the west or aid one side in an international conflict, as long as it remained non-belligerent, even though this policy sometimes called for a complicated balancing act for the neutral Swedish state.

This thesis set out to analyse early baptistic peace-activities in Sweden in the 1900s, through a micro-historical analysis of Albert Wickman (1884-1942) who was a Swedish Baptist pastor and peace-agitator. In nonconformist-churches we find the earliest pacifists and Wickman started out as a theological trained Baptist, but he founded an independent organisation with ideas based on teachings by Leo Tolstoy. His Anti-war organisation was organised much like the Salvation Army and had as key-concept to gather members who claimed they would not kill another human being. Another idea was to create an army of volunteers who would be willing to put themselves between fighting nations. The organisation had many thousands member but existed only between 1912-1918 and it never practiced it go-in-between ideas. In the 1920s Wickman was involved with the oldest Swedish peace-society, “Svenska Freds och Skiljedomsföreningen”, and raised their membership from 4 000 in 1922 to 49 000 in 1930, but he also led this organisation to almost bankruptcy. This thesis gives an account of who Albert Wickman was and through him offers contexts and world-views on his pacifistic thinking in the first decades of the 1900s and how peace was promoted at the time in Sweden.

Denna uppsats handlar om synen på vapenvägrare i militärmagasinet Värnpliktsnytt, där fokus ligger på de olika typerna av maskulina ideal som träder fram. Undersökningsperioden är 1971-1981. Studiens teoretiska ramverk baseras dels på ett genusperspektiv, dels på ett mediaperspektiv. Genusperspektivet bidrar till en förståelse för de typer av manlighet som de olika aktörerna ger uttryck för medan medieperspektivet ger en god inblick i hur ett militärmagasin som Värnpliktsnytt kan fungera som opinionsbildare. Undersökningen visar att journalisterna har en mycket positiv syn (i såväl texter som bilder) på de män som utför vapenfri tjänstgöring (inom exempelvis dagis och sjukvård). De står för en ”ny” form av manlighet som växer fram allt mer på 70-talet. Här premieras egenskaper som förnuftigt tänkande, jämställdhet och en öppenhet att visa känslor. Journalisterna anser att vapenfria gör sin plikt precis lika bra som vanliga värnpliktiga. Journalisterna har dock en kyligare ton mot de som totalvägrar, deras manlighet beskrivs oerhört sällan i positiva ordalag och deras typ av pacifism uppmuntras inte. De kritiska rösterna mot vapenvägrare (alltså både vapenfria och totalvägrare) får väldigt lite plats i tidningen och bemöts oftast av motkritik. När vapenfria, totalvägrare och kritiska röster själva får skriva (debattinsändare etc.) framträder ytterligare intressanta perspektiv. De vapenfria riktar exempelvis hård kritik mot det ”traditionella” manlighetsidealet och lyfter återkommande upp den etiska (och inte politiska eller religiösa) aspekten i sin vapenvägran. Totalvägrarna å sin sida menar att de själva är både tappra och modiga som vågar stå upp, och ta straffet, för sina pacifistiska ideal. De kritiska rösterna är i sin tur dels negativa mot både de vapenfria och totalvägrarna och nedvärderar deras manlighet, dels upplever de att Värnpliktsnytt är alldeles för partiska till fördel för gruppen med vapenvägrare. Avslutningsvis är vapenvägrar-frågan ett ämne som återkommer relativt kontinuerligt under 70-talet (även om många nummer är utan relevanta artiklar). Ett tydligt mönster är att fler artiklar i ämnet skrivs ju äldre decenniet blir.

This dissertation critically examines the ontological and epistemological significance of the concept of violence in French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s essay “Violence and Metaphysics” (Chapter 1), dialogues between Mennonite philosophical theologians who represent the Radical Reformation and John Milbank’s Radical Orthodoxy (Chapter 2), and the Death and the Displacement of Beauty trilogy by feminist philosopher of religion Grace Jantzen (Chapter 3). Although Derrida, Jantzen, and certain Mennonite philosophical theologians approach the problem of violence with very different concerns and frames of reference, each understand violence to have a distinctly ontological and epistemological character, while also suggesting that ontology and epistemology themselves are profoundly vulnerable to charges of violence. In Derrida’s essay “Violence and Metaphysics” language itself is imbricated in violence, and in their responses to John Milbank, Mennonite philosophical theologians Peter C. Blum and Chris K. Huebner situate their work both with and against Derrida’s supposed “ontology of violence” as they apply Christian pacifism to epistemology and seek to articulate an “ontology of peace.” In her late work in the Death and the Displacement of Beauty project, Grace Jantzen develops an epistemology that is similar to that of Blum and Huebner, while critiquing what she understands to be Derrida’s equivocation of linguistic with physical violence, all as part of her argument that the cultural habitus of the west is founded on an obsession with death that violently displaces natality with mortality. In bringing together these three sources, this dissertation uses “violence” as a diagnostic concept to assess the priorities and values of its users. Considering violence to be defined by the violation of value-laden boundaries, this study of three ontologies of violence interprets and critiques the values that Derrida’s deconstruction, philosophical Mennonite pacifism, and Jantzen’s critique of displacement seek to further and protect against violation. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation examines the early work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida (Chapter 1), debates between Mennonite philosophical theologians and John Milbank’s Radical Orthodoxy (Chapter 2), and the Death and the Displacement of Beauty trilogy by feminist philosopher of religion Grace M. Jantzen (Chapter 3). For Derrida, Jantzen, and certain Mennonite philosophical theologians the term “violence” is used to name ways of thinking, knowing, and speaking, rather than being restricted to the sphere of physical violations. This dissertation shows how these three sources each consider violence to be something that can inhere in ways of thinking about the world and our relation to it.

The Iliad and Heike monogatari are each seen as seminal pieces of literature in Greek and Japanese culture respectively. Both works depict famous wars from which subsequent generations of warriors, poets, and other artists in each society drew their inspiration for their own modes of conduct and creation. While neither work is emphatically pro-war, both were used extensively by the warrior classes of both cultures to reinforce warrior culture and to inculcate proper battlefield behavior. In spite of this, however, both tales contain a strong undercurrent of anti-war sentiment which contrasts sharply with their traditionally seen roles of being tales about warriors and their glorious deeds. This thesis examines these works and details the presence of anti-war sentiment while also highlighting its emergence to greater prominence in later works found within the genres of Greek tragedy and nō theater. Ultimately, the Iliad and Heike monogatari act as foundational sources of anti-war sentiment for the later dramatic works, which poets of both cultures used to decry the woeful effects of war on both combatants and the innocent. By examining the presence of anti-war sentiment in two cultures that share surprising similarities but are widely separated by geography and chronology, we are presented with both a broader and deeper understanding of the effects of warfare on society and of the historical responses of citizen populations to events in war.

This thesis attempts to record the progress of peace promoting projects by telling the story of the beginning, development, and operation of the Peace Movement, with special emphasis on the post war undertakings. It is written primarily for the junior high school student, with the hope that the information will provide a suitable basis for him to make his own deduction as to whether or not wars are necessary in settling international disputes. The method adopted is that of simple historical narration, beginning with ancient times and bringing it down to the present day. This broad approach is necessary so that the student may grasp the sweep and spirit of the movement.

Save the Children Fund (SCF) was at its foundation in 1919 a value-driven organization. The values, or guiding principles, of the founding generation are the lens through which I look at the history of SCF, and the associated histories of war and peace, human rights and NGO-state relations. These guiding principles are identified as universalism, utilitarianism and optimistic pacificism. They can be understood as a paradigm to which the social community which made up the founding generation of SCF gave their assent. The first chapter locates the founding generation within the political culture of the anti-war movement. Succeeding chapters detail the metamorphosis of SCIF from a'contentious social movement into a respectable national organization. As soon as the organization adopted a national rather than a universal orientation, the coordinates of all its guiding principles shifted. In particular the optimistic pacificism of the founding generation was replaced by pessimistic defencism. It was not until after the Cold War that SCIF began to realign itself with its original guiding principles. The three guiding principles are found to be of continuing relevance. Universalism has been reasserted as a positive creed leading SCF to seize political opportunities to reach out to children from all sides. The organization has adopted a utilitarian perspective that affirms the dynamic role of young people in generating their own futures. Lastly, the primacy attached to peace by war-affected people has underlined SCFs urgent mission to uphold an optimistic belief in the possibility of peace. / Vera Steele Studentship in Peace Research

This essay examines whether and how activist theology can be a force for creating peace and presents some practical examples through women who broke new ground and in the midst of raging world wars organized to stop violence and militarism. Through various actions, they wanted to establish not only themselves but also create social change where women were invited and had an obvious place in the society. The purpose of this essay is to examine theological resources for resistance to violence in the peace actions carried out in Sweden by women during the period 1890-1940 through the concepts of activist and lived theology. The peace actions themselves are described and connected with different theological themes to see if the actions can be understood in new ways through these frameworks. The aim is not only to dress peace actions in a new coat and new theological concepts, but also to visualize the womens organization and methods as well as the results of their actions. Women whose contribution is particularly highlighted for this essay are Elin Wägner, Emilia Fogelklou and to some extent Fredrika Bremer as a foreground figure, this as these women particularly expressed theological and religious motivation in their peace work.