Discussions about the utility of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping has been ongoing since its emergence in the late 1940s, and scholars have studied different peacekeeping missions from various perspectives. However, there is a gap in the research when it comes to evaluating the state of peace in countries that have experienced successful UN peacekeeping missions a few years after the mission is finished. The UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia (UNMIL) was deemed a success when it was finished. For that reason, this study investigates the state of peace in Liberia five years after the UN peacekeeping mission handed overall security-related responsibilities to the Liberian government in 2016. The state of peace in Liberia today will be analyzed using Johan Galtung’s definition of peace and violence. This study has been conducted as a qualitative desk and case study and has followed abductive reasoning. The data used in this study have been analyzed through text analysis. Findings show that the UN indeed succeeded in reaching their goals for the mission. But, when applying Galtung’s definition of peace and violence it is clear that the goals set by the UN can be categorized as negative peace, which means the absence of direct violence. Positive peace however, which means the absence of direct, structural and cultural violence, has not yet been achieved since there is still high levels of corruption and discrimination in the country. The conclusion includes a discussion about whether or not the UN can and/or shall aim for positive peace, or if negative peace is a realistic goal and then hand the process of achieving higher levels of positive peace to the host country, in this case Liberia.

This thesis is confronting literature on art and peace and on peace education with reflections of young performing artists. The artists have been interviewed on their experiences in theatre, music and dancing. From comparing the interview outcomes with the literature this thesis is trying to add an artist’s perspective to existing knowledge of cooperation of art and peace. The research concludes that within the examined performing artists’ reflections, there are similarities and differences to the literature detectable, which might indicate possibilities and concerns for the cooperation of art and peace and the use of performing arts in peace education. It also indicates that there is a lot more room for further research.

More than a century before Grotius wrote his famous work on international law, his countryman Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam laid the foundations for the modern critique of war. In several writings, especially those published in the period 1515- 1517, the "prince of humanists" brilliantly and devastatingly condemned war not only on Christian but also on secular/rational grounds. His graphic depiction of the miseries of war, together with his impassionate plea for its avoidance, remains unparalleled. Erasmus argued as a moralist and educator rather than as a political theorist or statesman. If any single individual in the modern world can be credited with "the invention of peace", the honour belongs to Erasmus rather than Kant whose essay on perpetual peace was published nearly three centuries later. / Published erratum on last page.

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Abstract                                                                              For long the peace researchers have studied peace in relation to war or to a greater extent negative peace than a positive peace. You may ask what happened with peace? This thesis aims to gain how peace, and positive peace, may be investigated and concretized in a time when states seem more concerned to invest in international commitments like NATO and weapon arsenals than invest in solidarity, diplomatic or peaceful settlements.   Through a literary method with an exploratory design the problem statement is assayed in three different ethical perspective. The analyse of the problem statement; Based on cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and feminist peace ethics, how should positive peace be framed in a time of state emergency? is analysed, interpreted, and compared from the main perspective of cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and feminism peace ethics. Since peace ethic is not one besides a pluralistic ethic, peace ethics, the conclusion is that they all contribute to and welcome a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary development of the framework for further peace researcher. Besides some contradictions the investigated ethical perspective is unit that peace should be studied and conceptualized through peace and be framed in a nonpatriarchal language. Hence, the majority of the chosen ethical perspectives support a combination of micropolitics with the engagement of the individual to a macro politic with transnational covenants and with a greater role of responsibility for United Nation to promote and concretize peace. The ethical contradictions for peace consider the questions of responsibility, commitments, and interference how to realize peace. Future research questions should be raised whether and how diminished poverty is to embody peace? The main conclusion is that peace accelerates more peace and peace generates the benefits of prosperity and justice, why peace should be concretized and promoted in a time of stat emergency.     Keywords:  Ethics of Peace, Positive Peace, Qualitative Peace, Promote Peace, Illustrate Peace, Peace Researcher, Stat Emergency, Cosmopolitanism, Internationalism, Feminist Peace Ethics.

Contributing to a fairly new discipline in the region, this study investigates the objectives, contents, design, approaches, strategies and methodologies involved in a Peace Education initiative called The Young Peace Ambassador Program (TYPAP), which is being implemented in East Africa and the Horn of Africa. The aim of the study is to outline the nature, causes and consequences of conflict and violence in northern Kenya and Somalia by looking at the way in which peace education can help build a culture of peace in northern Kenya and Somalia. Accordingly, the consistency of TYPAP with peace education principles, its impact according to interviewees and how far it has met its own objectives were assessed. Thus, using a qualitative case study methodology employing content analysis, interviews and observations, this dissertation shows that TYPAP a multifaceted peace education initiative working with local partners – has potential not just for creating awareness of peace issues, but also for cultivating the seeds of a culture of peace. Following Galtung’s theories, the dissertation also indicates that it is not just “structural violence”, but also the deeper symptoms of “cultural violence”, that we may need to address in taking the region forward in the coming years. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

Contributing to a fairly new discipline in the region, this study investigates the objectives, contents, design, approaches, strategies and methodologies involved in a Peace Education initiative called The Young Peace Ambassador Program (TYPAP), which is being implemented in East Africa and the Horn of Africa. The aim of the study is to outline the nature, causes and consequences of conflict and violence in northern Kenya and Somalia by looking at the way in which peace education can help build a culture of peace in northern Kenya and Somalia. Accordingly, the consistency of TYPAP with peace education principles, its impact according to interviewees and how far it has met its own objectives were assessed. Thus, using a qualitative case study methodology employing content analysis, interviews and observations, this dissertation shows that TYPAP a multifaceted peace education initiative working with local partners – has potential not just for creating awareness of peace issues, but also for cultivating the seeds of a culture of peace. Following Galtung’s theories, the dissertation also indicates that it is not just “structural violence”, but also the deeper symptoms of “cultural violence”, that we may need to address in taking the region forward in the coming years. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

Countries emerging out of armed conflicts face immense challenges in their efforts to build electoral democracies. Contrary to our intuition that elections can transform violent competition to peaceful political contests, past research suggests that holding post-conflict elections only increases the chance of renewed violence. Why are elections unable to build sustainable democracies as expected? In this dissertation, I examine the question by focusing on two levels of analysis. First, I study the effects of violence on political behavior of mass publics at the individual level using the World Values survey Dataset. I argue that citizens are more inclined to support undemocratic leaders, when they are faced with threats from armed violence. Empirically, I find that presence of pre-election violence in post-conflict elections leads voters to prefer parties that are stronger in terms of their violence-wielding capacities over more moderate and peaceful parties. Second, I investigate how such an outcome might influence the risk of renewed conflicts in a country emerging out of armed conflict. The hypothesized mechanism can only be described as tragic. At individual level, fearful voters support violent parties mainly to maintain the status quo, fearing that parties with a violent reputation are likely to renew conflict if they lose the election. Tragically, however, placing undemocratic and violent parties in power only increases the likelihood of renewed conflicts. I test this expectation using an event history model to analyze all post-conflict countries from 1950 to 2010 and find that the presence of pre-election violence in a country increases its risk of renewed armed conflicts. The study has important implication for policymakers and election monitoring bodies. Rather than the current practice of observing only a single event Election Day, this study emphasizes the importance of creating a secure environment during the pre-election phase, about six months prior to the first election, in order to achieve a sustainable peace in post-conflict countries.

Traditionally, war and peace have been approached as incompatible entities; where war and violence are present, peace has been assumed to be absent. Recent studies of peace in conflict have started to undermine this assumption, since expressions of peace and attempts at building peace have been found among individuals and communities entangled in violent conflicts.   This thesis explores peace in war via democratic confederalism, an ideology that is being implemented in northern Syria. An ideational analysis is used to approach the ideology, which is later compared with an analytical framework developed from liberal and critical peacebuilding to explore democratic confederalism’s similarities and deviations in regard to the two theories. Afterwards, the findings are analysed in the context of northern Syria.  The study shows that there are several intersections between aspects of critical peacebuilding and democratic confederalism. Discussed through the war in northern Syria and it is argued that the self-defence part of democratic confederalism has taken a prominent and necessary role, but one that might obscure the aspects of democratic confederalism that are peace-conducive. The research paper concludes that while this might make democratic confederalism as a whole appear less peaceful, it should be understood through the context of war and aspects that contribute to peace should be interpreted as expressions of peace in violent conflict.

The central question of this study addresses the issue of the impact and effect of peace building interventions on the dynamics of peace and conflict. It takes as its context the process of rebuilding and reconciliation in KwaZulu-Natal and uses the Oxfam Canada peace building programme as a specific case study. The study identifies and analyses the peace building impact of the programme with the aim of leading to a common peace building framework for improving the planning, conduct and evaluation of peace building interventions in post conflict situations. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, 2000.