This ethnographically based study examines Swedish hunters' claims to victimhood through appeal to the term 'persecution'. Perceiving disenfranchisement, injustice and discrimination on the basis of wolf conservation policy, we present hunters' self-styled predicament as victimhood-claimants of persecution at the hands of a state that has been co-opted by a conservationist, pro-wolf agenda that systematically disenfranchises rural and hunting interests and lifestyles. Through the phenomenological accounts of hunter respondents, our paper takes seriously the hunters' perception of persecution and, likewise, considers the opposite case made by conservationists: that wolves have been, and continue to be, the real victims of persecution in the conflict. Nonetheless, we show that the persecution language as it is applied from opposing parties in the conflict is problematic inasmuch as it is focused around creating a moral panic and confusion among the Swedish public who are ultimately responsible, as a democratic body-politic, for assessing the legitimacy of claims to moral wrong-doing and legal redress for the wronged. Our case study joins scholarship that explores the pathologies of claims to victimization by populist rural interest groups in the context of controversial conservation directives.

A striking characteristic of Brigham Young's theology was his inclusion of a cosmology in his teachings. In his speeches as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Young juxtaposed cosmological pronouncements with practical advice. Young regularly opined on such topics as the eternal nature of matter and light and the interaction of gods and humans with these substances. Dovetailed to his cosmic musings was down-to-earth advice on raising children, avoiding the evils of the gold rush, and controlling one's temper. This paper argues that Young's mingling of the abstruse with the mundane functioned as a theodicy for the nineteenth-century Mormons. In order to justify an omnipotent God's allowance of Mormon suffering and persecution, Young framed God and the human experience within a cosmology. He taught that humans exist with the express purpose of accumulating light and truth. This accumulation would continue after death throughout eternity. Young taught that an ineluctable factor in this progression was suffering and for this reason, Young condoned God's allowance of Mormon hardship. By weaving these cosmological teachings with his pragmatic counsel, Young taught the Latter-day Saints to view their daily lives--full of struggles, pain, and fear--within a cosmological framework. Young believed that such a mindset would bolster the faith of the benighted Mormons.

Violence, Atrocity and the Behaviour of Pro-Government Armed Groups Bronia Naorni Flett ABSTRACT This thesis explores the existence and behaviour of the under-researched and under- theorised pro-government armed group (PGAG). The core research question is: Why do POAOs behave violently? I define a PGAG as a group that is armed, organised and connected to government. Detailed evidence on PGAGs is limited and typically collected on a case-by-case basis by historians, anthropologists and journalists. The pro-government militia database (www.abdn.ac.uk/rnilitias) is the first project to collect evidence on these groups in a systematic manner. The database finds POAOs existing and operating in diverse environments; they are frequently violent and commit human rights abuses. The empirical contribution of this thesis is to collect further detailed evidence on the behaviour of PGAGs in three diverse cases: the notorious militias in Yugoslavia, the under-researched peasant militias in Peru and the well-regarded International Brigades in Spain.

In this project a theory of adaptive differential insurgency growth by the mechanism of repression driven contagion is put forth to explain variation in the membership and spatial expansion of insurgencies from 1981 to 1999. As an alternative to the dominant structural approaches in the civil war literature, Part 1 of the study proposes an interactive model of insurgency growth based on Most and Starr's opportunity and willingness framework. The findings suggest that state capacity, via its impact on state repressive behavior, plays an important gatekeeping function in selecting which minor insurgencies can grow into civil war, but contributes little to insurgency growth directly. In Part 2 of the study, I directly examine variation in insurgency membership and geographical expansion as a function of repression driven contagion. I find that repression increases the overall magnitude of insurgency activity within states, while at the same time reducing the density of insurgency activity in any one place. Despite an abundance of low intensity armed struggles against a highly diverse group of regimes around the world, I find an extremely strong and robust regularity: where repression is low - insurgencies don't grow.

Thesis (LL. M.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Sociology)--Vanderbilt University, Dec. 2008. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 1990. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-183).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2008. / Thesis directed by Daniel J. Myers for the Department of Sociology. "July 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-160).

Thesis. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Oxford, 2002. / Supervisor: Dr P.B. Carey, Dr M. O'Hanlon. Title from start screen (viewed Aug. 19, 2004). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-107). Also issued online.