Contemporary peace operations are deployed to increasingly complex, high-risk environments where localised armed groups, often those that can influence the trajectory of the conflict are not at the table, at the same time militaries are mandated to facilitate social, economic and political transformative processes in recovered areas. By the opening of the twenty-first century, the distinction between peacebuilding and military interventions converged both in policy and practice and increasing pressure are placed on the troop contributing countries to adapt to the dynamics of ‘multidimensional peace operations’. Drawing upon the intersection between the academic bodies of peacekeeping and counter-insurgency, this research argues that there is a growing amount of empirically grounded literature that seeks to critically assess missions’ peacebuilding capability, and more specifically its impact on local settings. Yet, most studies tend to be framed in relation to conflict abatement along reductionist approaches to development rather than analysing how and in what ways such missions aid in providing a stable polity, thus suggesting a need of further investigation about the phenomena. In contribution to the community of practice(s), this research draws upon the latest theoretical trend of peacebuilding, abiding to a system perspective of the 5 Capabilities Framework (5Cs). This, in order to attain an increased understanding of military actors’ involvement and ability to undertake early peacebuilding tasks, by studying the case of the Kenyan Defense Force (KDF) under the auspices of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in the Jubbaland region. Moreover, the research was operationalised through an on-ground collection of data in Kenya and Somalia, using unstructured and semi-structured interviews and draws upon a purposive sampling method to gather perspectives from a variety of actors involved in peace operation affairs. The study finds that the AMISOM KDF have played a key role in shaping the organisation’s peacebuilding policy, with a diverse portfolio engagement of both top-down and bottom-up character. Working predominantly through informal structures, much of their engagement is not aligned with the AMISOM civilian headquarters, in response to an environment with many challenges, resulting in a patchwork of practices with sectoral difference. Analytically, the 5Cs framework posit that an organisation must strike a balance between all capabilities in order to produce social value, something that the Kenyan contingents have struggled to achieve. While this unpacks a view of moderate, to low capacity for peacebuilding, it also generates an overall critique to the framework as it promotes a scenario which seems impossible to realise. Despite its ‘system-wide’ contribution, questions remain regarding the value of the framework in analysing local peacebuilding engagement in peace operations.

This thesis concentrates on the topic of private military companies in the relation to their activities within conflict resolution in four selected African countries - Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte D'Ivoire. The main goal of this thesis is to chart their activities in three areas - within peacekeeping operations, in peacebuilding and within the efforts to maintain stability - and by comparison of collected data for each case study evaluate within which phase of conflict resolution they operate most frequently. At the same time the attempt of this thesis is to identify services that are desired most during conflict resolution process in Africa and examine the possibility that private military companies came through some changes since 1990. In order to gain relevant data for the comparison, technical texts and collected data analysis is being carried out. Keywords security, private military companies, privatization, peacekeeping, peacebuilding

The thesis based on analysis of international community peacebuilding policy and consequent reaction by local actors assesses the influence of this interaction onto the liberal peace and changes in missions' operation. The extent of local ownership and the real agency of local actors is then dependent on the time of mission occurrence, power related interests of international community and the force and accessibility of structures that the international community tries to influence. Key words: peacebuilding, hybridization, local ownership, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone

Armed conflict affects men and women differently due to their previous roles in the society. For instance, it often crucially changes the status of women and enhances their emancipation. Therefore, women should be included in conflict resolution as well as in peace negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction, to ensure sustainable peace. Examples from many African countries driven by conflict denote that women are not automatically included in these processes. This single intrinsic case study documents the work of women peace mediators in Burundi. At the theoretical level, the study argues for an elicitive endogenous approach to peacebuilding, embedded in the conflict transformation theory by John Paul Lederach. Nevertheless, theoretical concepts are not emphasized because they tend to limit the mediators' agenda which actually involves a wide range of conflict handling mechanisms. The main part of the study is based on semi-formal questionnaires filled out by women peace mediators in Bujumbura. The goal of the research is twofold: First, it is aimed to introduce the mediators and to understand their motivations to mediate. Second, it documents their everyday work by analysing official reports. The findings show that an "average" mediator is a married woman, with children, with at least secondary...

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a territorial and ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that has led to war, displacement, trauma and continuing animosities. This thesis examines the differential long-term effects of the conflict in the lives of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and refugees from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh who have remained largely excluded from current peacebuilding initiatives. Ethnographic fieldwork and interviews were conducted with displaced and refugee women and with queers in Sumgayit and Baku in Azerbaijan and around Tbilisi in Georgia. The research uses an intersectional sensibility to explore the constitution and effects of economic hardship, ill-health and social exclusion as well the militarization in the life histories and everyday experiences of IDP and refugee women and queers. On this basis, it reflects what their participation, insights and concerns could contribute to the stalled peace processes and what cultural and societal changes will be required for peacebuilding and a more lasting resolution of this frozen conflict. Key words: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, gender, ethnicity, intersectionality, peacebuilding, militarization, queer community, IDP and refugee women 1

With a starting point in the Together: Building a Shared Community strategy (T:BUC) published in 2013 by the Government of Northern Ireland’s Executive Office, this study examines two of the strategy’s Key Priorities: Our Shared Community and Our Safe Community, in order to analyze contemporary peacebuilding efforts carried out by the Northern Irish government. The study is guided by the research question: Why might the strategic aims such as removing all interface barriers by 2023 in the T:BUC fail in their attempts to build peace? To answer this question, the thesis takes a qualitative methodological approach relying on both primary and secondary data and Carol Bacchi’s method of ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be’ approach to poststructural policy analysis. This methodological approach is accompanied by Audra Mitchell’s theoretical framework of plural world-building. The study finds that the T:BUC strategy problematizes the interface barriers in Belfast, the usage of symbols such as flags, as well as the division of communities within Northern Ireland - all concepts that in this thesis are argued as important ‘threatworks’ and ‘world-building’ means of the conflicting communities in order to avoid violence. The thesis concludes that by interfering with these types of world-building means, the Northern Irish government risks inducing ‘radical violence’ to these ethno-national groups and perhaps provoking escalating violence amongst them.

Diploma thesis deals with the connection between the nature of implemented peacekeeping operation and possible positive output of this activity and thus with successful peacebuilding in the specific context of etnopolitical conflicts. Etnopolitical disputes constitute a vivid challenge aimed towards United Nations organisation. Mainly, because this organisation is one of the main actors of international system in finding solutions of etnopolitical conflicts and because United Nations also proposes concrete tools for their resolving - peacekeeping missions. We work with assumption that the nature of etnopolitical conflict and the nature of conflicting parties involved influence, to an important extent, involvement and impact of peacekeeping operations in resolving these conflicts. Diploma thesis, through the use of theories of origin and solvability of ethnic conflicts, creates the framework within which their more complicated solvability can be explained as well as inhibitors of theoretically successful models. Likewise, the typology of peacekeeping operations is defined and also narrower understanding of peacebuilding, as a set of political and security aspects, is described. Datas from four case studies then offer an opportunity to formulate partial endings and findings of examined causal relation. C lick...

The thesis based on analysis of international community peacebuilding policy and consequent reaction by local actors assesses the influence of this interaction onto the liberal peace and changes in missions' operation. In accordance with O. Richmond the conclusion of post-liberal peace coming to the fore is accepted if only in contextually based forms. The extent of local ownership and the real agency of local actors is then dependent on the time of mission occurrence, power related interests of international community and the force and accessibility of structures that the international community tries to influence. Key words: peacebuilding, hybridization, local ownership, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone

This thesis concentrates on the topic of private military and security companies in the relation to their activities within peacebuilding efforts in three african countries - Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. The main goal of this thesis is to chart their activities in these countries and evaluate the level of their influence on the quality of the security, and to draw the attention to risks related to their engagement. This paper postulates the thesis that after proper regulation of their activities, private military and security companies could play an important role in peacebuilding in Africa. This thesis tries to vindicate this claim by technical texts analysing along with collected data. Furthermore, this thesis evaluates the state of current research in this area and look on the opinions of specialists on the engagement of private military and security companies in peacebuilding efforts. Keywords security, private military and security companies, privatization, peacebuilding

Post-liberal, hybrid peace, a new model of peacebuilding, aims to step away from the top-down imposition of liberal peace. In order to recognise the local, the new model considers the interaction between the international and the local as a dynamic power interaction, through which the means and ends of peace can be mediated. Yet, it has already been criticised for its theoretical underpinnings which would, ultimately, impede it to achieve its objectives. This thesis aims to determine the concrete impacts of the elements pinpointed by the critiques. It adopts an alternative focus on both the programme itself and the affected population’s perspectives. Through an instrumental case study of the EU Peace III Fund’s peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and the Border Region, the thesis highlights that these critiques can take different, practical forms. It enables to unveil the importance of exploring the affected population’s perspectives, of the initial context as well as the external peacebuilder’s belief that it knows, still, what is best over the affected populations.