The crisis in Burundi began when President Pierre Nkurunziza declared that he would pursue a third term despite a two-term limitation in Burundi’s Constitution. Opposition parties along, with some members of President Nkurunziza’s own National Council for Defence of Democracy, Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), argued that President Nkurunziza’s decision to extend his rule beyond the maximum two-terms was in direct violation of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation agreement, also referred to as the Arusha agreement, signed in 2000. This action triggered opposition parties and civil society groups to organize peaceful protests to challenge President Nkurunziza’s third term bid. In response, government forces and Imbonerakure youth militia coordinated a campaign of repression and intimidation. The country of Burundi is characterized by political violence, targeted assassinations, and accusations of torture and rape by both government forces and armed opposition groups. The purpose of this study was to examine how the conflict surrounding presidential term limit manipulation affected the perception of peace and stability among people in Burundi. Understanding this phenomenon is extremely important because the recent hike in violence among Burundians has negatively affected the peace and stability of the nation. Through a mixed-method case study approach, the study’s main findings indicate the significant fracturing of citizen perceptions of peace and stability along identity lines, significant fear and insecurity among Burundians about the current crisis, as well as the continuing impact of the long-standing violence in the country’s past. Keywords: presidential term limits, conflict resolution, political violence, term limit manipulation, qualitative case study, and quantitative survey.

A handful of studies have shown that National Inter-religious Councils (NIRCs) contribute to electoral violence prevention. However, no quantitative study has evaluated the impact of their interventions and the conditions under which they lower electoral violence. Using data on African national elections from 1992-2019, I examine whether NIRCs' electoral-related peacebuilding interventions lower the severity of electoral violence and if their ability to do so depends on NIRCs' social power. The results in this thesis indicate that the presence of NIRCs' interventions during electoral rounds lowers the likelihood of severe electoral violence. The findings also reveal a significant disordinal interaction between NIRCs' interventions and their power, where the predicted probability of severe electoral violence reduces by 42% when powerful NIRCs implement peacebuilding interventions and, on the other hand, increases by 20% when less powerful NIRCs intervene. While this thesis fails to explain the disordinal interaction effect, it details this study's methodological tools and limitations and contributes an original dataset of NIRCs' interventions and power for future research.

Social conflict, as opposed to armed conflict, has received less attention in the field of quantitative research. This paper investigates the structural causes of political violence in 35 African states using data from the Social Conflict in Africa dataset and the Beck and Katz panel corrected standard errors time series regression model. Theoretically, a closed political opportunity structure, combined with a weak state unable to provide public goods, should together produce high levels of social conflict. The independent variables attempt to operationalize these concepts from four different angles. In this analysis Access to Education and Infrastructure (AEI), Ethno Linguistic Fractionalization (ELF), Freedom in the World Political Rights (FIW), and National Material Capabilities (NMC) were all significant predictors of social conflict. This study found that as the level of ethnic fractionalization and material capabilities within states rose, the frequency of social conflict events also increased. However, as access to infrastructure and political rights declined, the number of social conflict events increased. Wald chi-square and R-square values suggest that the model is complete and has substantial explanatory power.

No abstract available in dissertation / Politicisation of identities, negotiations and transition in a conflict society / Ethics of a genocide-free Burundi / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.A. (Philosophy)

This thesis is an examination of the long historical processes that have led to the Israel/Palestine conflict to the contemporary period, focusing mostly on the period before Israeli independence and the 1948 war that created the Jewish state. As Zionism emerged at the turn of the twentieth century to combat the antisemitism of Europe, practical and political facets of the movement sought immigration to Palestine, an area occupied by a large population of Arab natives. The answer to how the Zionists would achieve a Jewish state in that region, largely ignoring the indigenous population, fostered disagreements and a split in the Zionist ideology. The Revisionist Zionist organization was founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky and favored a more militant orientation. With an “Iron Wall” manifesto, and as time passed and international aid waned, the Revisionists evolved into an anticolonial movement that not only viewed Palestinians as an obstacle to the Jewish state but turned their anticolonial furor toward the British and United Nations threats. That evolution reached a crescendo in 1948 when the Revisionist paramilitary group Lehi assassinated the UN Mediator, Count Bernadotte. That act was a catalyst that began the end of the war and the solidification of a Palestinian refugee crisis that persists to the present. As the Iron Wall Doctrine evolved from the early teachings of Jabotinsky through anticolonial violence and the removal of native Arabs from the new state of Israel, future prime ministers who were former Revisionist terrorists maintained the prescribed perpetual state of war Jabotinsky predicted with the now landless Palestinians. This research concludes that both Jabotinsky and Bernadotte were crucial characters in the narrative that allowed for the Iron Wall Doctrine, and thus the Jewish state, to not only exist but to carry on beyond the 1948 independence into the long standing conflict it has become.

This study examines the debates on nationalism, terrorism and conflict resolution, and intends to identify, on the one hand, the reasons why and the instances in which nationalist discourses usurp the notions of political violence and present it as a legitimate option for opposing a State, and on the other, whether there exist circumstances where conflict resolution techniques and approaches can be useful in isolating terrorist discourses from the nationalist ones, without necessarily criminalising the latter. The study employs a critical and discourse analysis approach to explaining ethno-nationalist and terrorist phenomena, arguing that a contextualisation of the nationalist and terrorist objects of study is necessary in order to comprehensively analyse the relationship between the two, and the instances where the former gives rise to the latter. The purpose of the study is to develop a theoretical framework for the understanding of nationalism and terrorism as interconnected practices, and looks into ways in which conflict resolution can intervene and prevent the infusion of the two. In order to test this framework, the thesis examines the Basque conflict and discusses how the discriminatory practices of the Francoist dictatorship towards the Basques played a catalytic role in their acceptance of violence as a legitimate vehicle of pursuit of the nationalist aim of independence, and how the radicalisation of counter-terrorist practices after the democratic transition further distanced the civil society from both the State and the militant group. The study analyses the role of the Basque civil society, and how it became the primary actor in the transformation of the conflict by rejecting violent practices from both the State and ETA, while at the same time promoting a more civic aspect of the Basque nationalist discourse. This attitude allows the thesis to conclude that, contrary to theories of conflict resolution, the State can combat terrorism most effectively when it allies with civil society in the alteration of perceptions that perpetuate violence, but instead favour a strictly political approach to the pursuit of political objectives, like self-determination.

According to conventional wisdom winning hearts and minds is one of the most important goals for defeating terrorism. However, despite repeated claims about U.S. efforts to build popular support as part of the war on terror during the first seven years after 9/11, a steady stream of polls and surveys delivered troubling news. Using a counterinsurgency and social movement informed approach, I explain why the United States performed poorly in the race for Muslim hearts and minds, with a specific focus on problems inherent in the social construction of terrorism, the use of an enemy-centric model while overestimating agency, and the counterproductive effect of policy choices on framing processes. Popular support plays wide-ranging roles in counterterrorism, including: influencing recruitment, fundraising, operational support, and the flow of intelligence; providing credibility and legitimacy; and, sanctifying or marginalizing violence. Recognizing this the U.S. emphasized public diplomacy, foreign aid, positive military-civilian interactions, democracy promotion, and other efforts targeting populations in the Muslim world. To explain the problems these efforts had, this thesis argues that how Americans think and talk about terrorism, reflected especially in the rhetoric and strategic narrative of the Bush administration, evolved after 9/11 to reinforce normative and enemy-centric biases undermining both understanding of the underlying conflicts and resulting efforts. U.S. policy advocates further misjudged American agency, especially in terms of overemphasizing U.S. centrality, failing to recognize the importance of real grievances, and overestimating American ability to implement its own policies or control the policies of local governments. Finally, the failure to acknowledge the role of U.S. policies counterproductively impacted contested framing processes influencing the evolution of mobilization. The resulting rhetoric and actions reinforced existing anti- American views, contributed to the perception that the war on terror is really a war on Islam, and undermined natural counter narratives.

The years i 920-22 constituted a period of unprecedented conflct and political change in Ireland. It began with the onset of the most brutal phase of the War ofIndependence and culminated in the effective miltary defeat of the Republican IRA in the Civil War. Occurring alongside these dramatic changes in the south and west of Ireland was a far more fundamental conflict in the north-east; a period of brutal sectarian violence which marked the early years of partition and the establishment of Northern Ireland. Almost uniquely the IRA in the six counties were involved in every one of these conflcts and yet it can be argued was on the fringes of all of them. The period i 920-22 saw the evolution of the organisation from a peripheral curiosity during the War of independence to an idealistic symbol for those wishing to resolve the fundamental divisions within the Sinn Fein movement which developed in the first six months of i 922. The story of the Northern IRA's collapse in the autumn of that year demonstrated dramatically the true nature of the organisation and how it was their relationship to the various protagonists in these conflcts, rather than their unceasing but fruitless war against partition, that defined its contribution to the Irish revolution.

Le nationalisme basque est apparu voilà maintenant deux siècles, cependant, il ne connait un retentissement mondial que depuis environ cinquante ans avec la création de l’ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, Pays basque Et Liberté). Fondée pour combattre le régime franquiste, cette organisation est aujourd’hui considérée comme un groupe terroriste par l’ensemble de la communauté internationale. L’organisation va être, toutefois, à la base d’une prise de conscience nationale basque sur la question de l’appartenance à un même peuple et, aujourd’hui, la lutte pour l’autodétermination du Pays basque fait écho tant sur le territoire espagnol que français. Ce mouvement nationaliste, bien qu’indissociable entre le sud et le nord, prendra tout de même des modes d’expression différents même si le nationalisme basque restera toujours rattachée à une violence politique. Le présent terrain de recherche a alors permis de récolter les « perceptions subjectives » de la population basque sur cette violence politique et ainsi, de dégager une violence de la part des Etats espagnol et français. Cette violence d’Etat est principalement caractérisée par une violence symbolique mais elle ira parfois jusqu’à une violence physique. Ainsi, bien plus que les contextes historiques et institutionnels distincts des Etats espagnol et français, c’est la violence disparate des ces deux Etats qui est le facteur de distinction de la violence nationaliste constatée sur le territoire français et espagnol. / Basque nationalism has emerged several centuries ago, however, it experienced a global resonance only since the last fifty years with the formation of the armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). Formed to fight the Franco regime, the organization is now considered as a terrorist group by the entire international community. The organization will, however, raise a Basque national consciousness on the question of belonging to the same people, and today, the conflict for self-determination for the Basque country echoes back in both the Spanish and French territories. This nationalist movement is indissociable between south and north. Different modes of expression are still observed even if the Basque nationalism will always be linked to political violence. The present research work allowed to apprehend the "subjective perceptions" of the Basque population on this political violence and, thus, to highlight a violence from both Spanish and French States. This State violence is mainly characterized by a symbolic violence but it will sometimes lead to physical violence. Therefore, much more than the separate historical and institutional contexts Spanish and French States, the un-harmonized State violence is the distinguishing factor of nationalist violence experienced on French and Spanish territories.

This study was a qualitative examination of social, economic, political, and cultural dilemmas that face Peruvian survivors of the Communist Shining Path Revolution, an internal armed conflict that cut a swath of terror and destruction during the years 1980-2000, with a reported loss of 69,000 residents either killed or considered “disappeared.” The conflict affected primarily poor, uneducated Andean campesinos and townspeople in the highland areas of the Ayacucho District. In this study, I looked closely at the responsibilities of both government and NGOs in the facilitation of readjustment during and after times of instability. In addition, specific challenges the elderly, women and campesinos face in a post-conflict world are analyzed and possible social policies are discerned that might be developed to better implement the transition to a new form of community. Ideas that emerged from this research may assist policy shapers in other less developed countries involved in similar conflicts by examining how Peru dealt with its own issues. Methodology included participant observation and interviews with long-term Ayacuchan residents who stayed-in-place during war time, along with migrants who went to live in shantytowns in more urban areas. The government-mandated Truth and Reconciliation Commission report serves as a framework as it outlined those ultimately deemed responsible and detailed what those affected may expect in the way of appropriate reparations and compensation in the future. Much emphasis is given to the emerging role of women and how ensuing shifts of gender specific cultural roles may affect familial and communal bonds in small-scale societies.