Even if the messiness of peacebuilding has been recognized for some time, peacebuilding has still been viewed as quite linear, meaning there’s a transition from war to peace and that peacebuilding is a phase. Recently, other voices have been raised claiming we need a paradigm shift and to stop seeing peacebuilding as linear and instead see it as a never-ending constantly adapting practice. The question then arises, if it is possible to distinguish that peacebuilding connected to a specific conflict ends at some point and if society adapts to conduct peacebuilding for new tensions within society. That is what this thesis aims to find out, and it does so by mapping the activities of the civil society in a post-conflict country, as civil society constitutes an excellent indicator of what kind of peacebuilding is being done. The case studied is El Salvador, which ended a 12-year-long civil war with a peace agreement in 1992. The activities are mapped with the help of a framework for analyzing civil society peacebuilding. The study concludes that much of the peacebuilding activities connected to the civil war seem to have ended, except for when it comes to the rights of people who became disabled by the civil war, as well as trauma treatment activities addressing trauma from the civil war. Civil society also shows certain adaptation to the gang violence, by addressing it with trauma treatment activities and activities aiming at building a culture of peace.

yes / The purpose of this paper is to identify how the presence, proliferation, and misuse of small arms and light weapons (SALW) negatively impact children in conflict and post-conflict societies. It examines the impact of these weapons on children's well-being, rights and development, drawing on primary research in Cambodia, Mozambique, and Colombia. It was prepared in the context of the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects in July 2001 and the UN Special Session on Children. Both are key opportunities to examine fully the impact of SALW on children at the international level and to agree global action to prevent and reduce the spread and misuse of the weapons that endanger the safety and undermine the potential of children. While UN agencies, international governmental organisations, human rights and development organisations have documented abuses committed against children, to date there has been no systematic analysis of the numerous ways in which SALW negatively affect the lives of children in conflict and post-conflict situations, let alone in societies at peace. However, the information that has been collected paints a terrible picture of devastation wrought by SALW. The use of small arms by and against children has both direct effects, which include death and injury, human rights abuses, displacement and psychosocial trauma, and indirect effects, which include insecurity, loss of health care, education and opportunities. These direct and indirect effects have both short and long-term impacts on the well-being, rights and development of children. This paper highlights these direct and indirect costs by drawing on the personal testimonies of youth affected by small arms in Cambodia, Mozambique, and Colombia - countries that have felt the devastating impacts of small arms and are currently at different phases of the recovery process. It is often extremely difficult to separate the impact of conflict from the impact of small arms on children but the human suffering caused by small arms is ultimately immeasurable. Indeed, the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has called small arms 'weapons of mass destruction' . These weapons often prolong and deepen the consequences of war and also impede post-conflict resolution and reconstruction. If many small arms remain behind after a conflict ends, they can promote insecurity, which in the extreme, may result in a return to conflict. Even in societies at peace, the presence of SALW can fuel crime and violence, and they can also be used by security forces for the facilitation of human rights violations against the civilian population. These weapons have several characteristics that make them ideal for contemporary conflicts and, in particular, the targeting and use of children in war. Many are so lightweight and simple that a child as young as eight can operate and repair them without difficulty. Equally, they can last over 40 years, meaning they can be exported from conflict to conflict through porous borders and lax national, regional, and international controls.

Yes / Small arms and light weapons (SALW) are recognised as increasing the lethality, duration and intensity of conflict with the effects of these weapons lasting for many years. The negative impacts of SALW are often greatest for the most vulnerable groups, including children. There is widespread international recognition of the negative effects of small arms on children, but efforts to control small arms and those to protect children have rarely been linked. The United Nations 2001 Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects and the UN Special Session on Children provide unique opportunities to examine the complex issues surrounding small arms and their impact on children, in particular, how the presence, proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons affect the lives of children.

Do peace agreements have an effect on police misconduct? This thesis researches the impact of peace agreements on police misconduct in post-conflict settings, focusing specifically on the occurrence of police misconduct following the 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC-EP. The study aims to determine whether peace agreements can lead to a reduction in police misconduct due to their transformative potential in reshaping police practices towards a human rights-aligned framework. By employing a large-n quantitative analysis on an original dataset, this research examines the relationship between peace agreements and police misconduct through various regression models. Findings suggest that the implementation of peace agreements correlates with a reduction in police misconduct, supporting the hypothesis that such agreements extend beyond the formal ending of the conflict by catalyzing a realignment of policing practices towards a more human rights-aligned framework. I argue this transformation, combined with strengthened accountability and oversight mechanisms, results in a shift in police conduct. This study fills a critical gap in the literature on post-conflict settings and offers empirical evidence on the broader implications of peace agreements on state institutions, particularly policing bodies.

This thesis is an ethnographic account of social change, triggered by the civil war in Nepal (1996-2006). Based on an ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Thabang, the war-time capital of the Maoist base area, this thesis explores the transformative impact of the conflict on people’s everyday lives and on the constitution of key hierarchies structuring Nepali society. Rather than focusing on violence and fear – the commonly researched themes in warzones – the thesis examines people’s everyday social and embodied practices during the war and its aftermath, arguing that these remain central to our understanding of war-time social processes and the ways in which they shape the contours of post-conflict society. By focusing on mundane practices – such as meat-eating and alcohol-drinking, raising livestock and worshipping gods – the thesis demonstrates how change at the micro-level is illustrative of a profound transformation in the social structures constituting Nepali society. Theoretically, the thesis seeks to understand how the situation of war re-orders society: in this case, how people in the Maoist base area interiorized formerly transgressive norms and practices, and how these practices were normalized in the post-conflict environment. The research revealed that much of the change triggered by the conflict came as a result of the ‘exceptional’ times of war and the necessity to follow ‘rules that apply in times of crisis’. Thus, in adopting transgressive practices during the conflict, people were responding to the expediency of war-time rather than following Maoist war-time policies or ‘propaganda’. Furthermore, while adopting hitherto unimaginable practices and making them into habitual action, people transformed the rigid social structures, without necessarily intending to do so. The thesis puts particular stress on the centrality of unintended consequences in social change, the power of embodied practice in making change real, and the ways in which agency and structure are mutually constitutive.

The built environment in the old city of Homs has been brutally destroyed by the conflict in Syria. The research gap in post-conflict planning and architectural design in the old city of Homs is alarming as it indicates that there are no clear roadmaps on how to deal with post-conflict housing units in such a historic area. This study aims to investigate the possible design basis of housing typologies and plans for the housing units in the old city after the conflict. This study is primarily based on a literature review and extensive discussions with a specialist architect from the city of Homs, who helped to gain a deeper understanding of how to approach such a topic. The literature review deals with the historical Arab cities’ components and the elements of courtyard houses both in general and in the old city of Homs in particular. Likewise, it looks at the city’s urban plans and building code and their shortcomings and highlights the current conditions there. It also highlights proposed strategies for post-conflict construction and discusses them. The findings of the study propose a design ideology for reconstruction strategies and translate these ideologies and findings from the literature into a practical design of typologies placed on a proposed plot of land in the old city, along with a proposal of what the plans of these houses might look like.

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)

This thesis attempts to reconcile the ‘two Rwandas’ which dominate contemporary scholarship, and seem on first glance utterly incommensurable: the inspirational developmental donor darling, and the brutal police state ruled by a shadowy ethnic clique. It argues both sides capture something, but fail to give a fair assessment of the mercurial system of political order constructed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) following the Genocide of 1994. This system is a durably strong state with exceptionally high levels of societal penetration capable of delivering order and other public goods, with a ruling party in a hegemonic position with a degree of medium-term stability, despite (and because of) its illiberal repressive character. Such a system is only possible because of the extremely unusual sociology of the RPF itself, forged in the refugee camps of Uganda and the Ugandan Bush War, and the structural constraints on rule within Rwanda. With these resources, the RPF has successfully made the transition from guerilla movement to hegemonic civilian political party, created bureaucratic institutions of government which penetrate to the lowest level, and hugely profitable ‘party-statals’ which co-exist alongside functioning competitive markets. Such successes are not disconnected from the violence, repression, and extra-judicial coercion which remain crucial to the regime. Analyses which think the positive aspects of Rwanda’s current ‘miracle’ can be mimicked without the accompanying domination and autocracy are engaging in wishful thinking. Crucially, given how distinctive the enabling conditions for Rwanda’s current political dispensation are, the extent to which Rwanda can be a policy exemplar or ‘best-practice’ for other African states to follow is in any case seriously overstated.

Transitional justice has undergone tremendous shifts since it was first used in Latin American and Eastern European countries to address post-authoritarian and post-communist legacies of atrocity and repression. In particular, the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has increased the demand for prosecutions within a field that was previously marked by compromise and non-prosecution. While there are increasing expectations that countries with unresolved claims of human rights abuses should enact transitional justice policies, most of the literature on the subject largely omits to explain how elites from those countries choose among the possible options of transitional justice, and specifically, how they choose among international prosecutions, domestic prosecutions, and truth-seeking. Using case studies of Kenya and Uganda, this dissertation examines this decision-making process to understand how elites choose and reject different transitional justice policies. Theoretically, the research examines how preferences for transitional justice policies are constituted through “judicial statecraft”: the strategic efforts by heterogeneous, interest-pursuing elites to use justice-related policies as carrots and sticks in the overall contestation of power. The research finds that the choices of elites about judicial statecraft depend on three factors: the extent to which the elites are secure that their policy choices cannot be subverted from within; the cost and credibility of transitional justice threats; and the effects, both intended and unintended, of history.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This thesis analyzes the "updated Petersberg tasks" included in the draft treaty establishing a Constitution for the European Union. The original Petersberg tasks called for forces capable of humanitarian and rescue missions, peacekeeping operations and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking. The updated tasks add conflict prevention, joint disarmament, military advice and assistance, post-conflict stabilization, and support to third countries in combating terrorism. The thesis focuses on the requirements of these tasks and the capabilities of the European Union's civilian agencies and military forces to execute them. It explores the meaning of the new missions, their specific capability requirements, and the prospects for the European Union to meet these requirements. It concludes that the European Union is currently capable of undertaking the missions that require mostly civilian tools or medium-level military forces for their conduct. The European Union does not at present have the relevant capabilities for the missions that demand more advanced military forces. / Major, Hellenic Army