Why do third-party interventions in civil wars sometimes positively contribute to fast conflict resolutions and post-war development and sometimes backfire? To solve this puzzle, I present a conceptual framework that links the motives and methods of intervention to civil war outcomes and post-war development. Two contrasting motives, self-interest and humanitarian concerns, lead to different intervention types. Self-interest prompts states to undertake unilateral and biased intervention. Humanitarian concerns encourage states to engage in multilateral intervention through the UN with a biased position. Interveners are more prudent in the use of force. They resort to violent methods only when critical security interests are at stake or when extreme humanitarian disasters occur. The method of intervention reflects interveners' motives and significantly influences civil war processes and post-war development. The effects of intervention on civil war duration and outcome, however, tend to be inconsistent with interveners' intentions. I find no empirical evidence that external intervention is likely to make civil war shorter. Whether interveners are motivated by humanitarian concerns or self-interest, they tend to fail to achieve their best outcome: a faster victory for their protégé or a faster negotiated settlement. Instead, biased interveners succeed in retarding military victory by their protégé's rival. Neutral interveners play a role in delaying time until government victory, regardless of their intention. The effects of intervention on post-war development are somewhat consistent with interveners' intention. Multilateral intervention motivated by humanitarian concerns tends to promote post-war well-being by increasing resources available for post-war reconstruction. On the other hand, unilateral intervention tends to impede the improvement of post-war quality of life. The use of force also has negative impacts on post-war development. The reason is that those interventions pursing self-interest produce a less-respondent government and reduce available resources. Military victory is more likely to improve post-war quality of life than is a negotiated settlement. However, the positive effects of military victory are realized only when a group wins a victory without biased support from foreign powers. I find that multilateral intervention using nonviolent methods and having an unbiased stance may be the best way for the international community to help post-war development.

While the urban crisis debate has expanded to examine a variety of American cities, the general exploration of how African Americans have responded to, and challenged, racial and urban inequality remains focused on grassroots political and community activism. This account of postwar New York City seeks to examine how structural discrimination created racial inequality, how African Americans suffered from a complex system of social consequences that further marginalized them, and how a politically conscious art form emerged from the destitution of the urban crisis. As illustrated through Robert Merton’s theory of Anomie, restricted opportunity for social and economic advancement created an environment vulnerable to crime. Not only were African American neighbourhoods susceptible to crime, but the conservative agenda tended to demonize African Americans as dangerous criminals, targeting them in the rise of mass incarceration. Resources were funneled into imprisoning more people, and African Americans were disproportionately represented in the American corrections system. As a result of this, African Americans were consistently excluded from certain jobs and denied basic civil rights. This thesis will also explore how African Americans responded to, and challenged, racial and urban inequality through the arts. The Black Arts Movement emerged from New York City in the mid-1960s. The movement was both confrontational and socially conscious. Artists sought to articulate the struggles of urban African Americans while empowering, educating, and protesting racial injustices. The Black Arts Movement was fundamentally political, and a predecessor to the Hip Hop culture which emerged from the South Bronx neighborhood of New York City.

This ethnographic work is about the aesthetic, habitual, and sentimental registers of some Bosnian Muslims’ (Bosniaks) daily lives in post-war Sarajevo. It addresses the ages-old themes of Bosnians’ multiple belongings and the question of political subjectivity through lived experience with a particular focus on the contemporary urgency to generate Bosniak national and religious subjectivity. It attends to the affective surplus of mundane scenes that convey the disconcerting drama of conversion to Islam, the nervous accumulation of new Islamic sensibilities, the vibrant ethos of Yugoslavism, the politically vulnerable but habitually engrained identity of Bosniannes, shared memories of the recent war, and the sustenance of the material and sentimental textures of domestic and communal life. Attending to the eventful character of the daily life enables the work to detail and test the existing frames of understanding Bosniaks (such as Nationalization and Islamization) and to further explore the potentialities of lived experience that escape existing regimes of representation. / text

On the 25th November 1965 Colonel Joseph Désiré Mobutu staged a bloodless coup to take charge of the political turmoil in recently independent Congo and establish one of the most brutal and corrupt dictatorships in modern African history. This thesis explores the story of the American hand both in Mobutu’s fortuitous rise and its subsequent sustenance of his regime in the name of its geostrategic Cold War agenda. Spanning the administrations of four presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Jimmy Carter, this study considers the effects of the American Mobutu alliance on Congo and how its relationship with the Congolese leader in turn shaped the American approach towards the wider region and, ultimately, defined its Cold War in Africa. The thesis begins with the CIA-organised mercenary suppression of the Simba rebellion from 1964 to 1965, before offering a detailed analysis of the American role in bringing Mobutu to the helm of Congolese politics and ensuring the survival of his initially tenuous grasp on power. Having consolidated his grip on Congo, subsequent chapters investigate the American role in the establishment of the Mobutist ‘State Kleptocracy’, the part played by the Kinshasa despot in defining the American stand in the Angolan Civil War and, despite the by now obvious shortcomings of its Congo alliance, the Carter administration’s continued support for Mobutu when his regime was threatened by violent dissent once more. As such, this thesis aims to give a more comprehensive and detailed picture of the American Cold War alliance with Congo’s profligate dictator from 1964 to 1981.

Focusing on the ‘second reign’ of Queen Elizabeth I (1588-1603), this thesis constitutes the first significant socio-political examination of Elizabethan Devon – a geographically peripheral county, yet strategically central in matters pertaining to national defence and security. A complex web of personal associations and informal alliances underpinned politics and governance in Tudor England; but whereas a great deal is now understood about relations between both the political elite and the organs of government at the centre of affairs, many questions still remain unanswered about how networks of political actors functioned at a provincial and neighbourhood level, and how these networks kept in touch with one another, central government and the court. Consequently, this study is primarily concerned with power and communication. In particular, it investigates and models the interconnected networks of government within late-Elizabethan Devon and explains precisely how the county’s officials (at every level) shared information with the Crown and each other. The raison d’être of this study is, therefore, to probe the character and articulation of the power geometries at the south-western fringe of Elizabethan England. The closing years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I represent a decisive phase in the evolution of the English nation state, one that saw the appointment of lord lieutenants on a more widespread and long-standing basis, the consistent training of certain sections of the county militias, the expansion of the pre-existing government post-stage service, a heightened degree of dealings between every echelon of administration and an obvious increase in the amount of information that flowed from the localities into the capital. The primary causes of each of these developments were the Elizabethan war with Spain (1585-1604) and the rebellion in Ireland (1594-1603), and it is demonstrated throughout this thesis that Devon, a strategically essential county during this period of political turmoil, provides an excellent case study for evaluating the impact that each had on the Crown’s ability to control the periphery whilst being spatially anchored at the court. Furthermore, by examining each of these developments the thesis fundamentally undercuts the tenacious assertion that geographically marginal regions of Tudor territory were inward-looking, remote and disconnected from events that were unfolding on a national and international level.

This thesis comprises an empirical study of the British role in Yugoslavia and its successor states between 1991 and 1995, and demonstrates that the British government led the international 'consensus' during that time, through what may be considered a doctrine of assertive appeasement while, at the same time, misleading parliament on issues crucial to an understanding of the situation. It also demonstrates that British policy was consistent, unlike that of its western allies, in obstructing initiatives aimed at effective international military intervention, which resulted in a prolongation of the war, and advanced the agenda of the Belgrade regime. The motives which may have guided British policy in this instance are discussed briefly in the introductory chapter which offers an outline of the global framework within which British policy was formulated in the wake of the Cold War, with particular reference to Britain's place in the New European order, following the downing of the Berlin Wall, and in the lead-up to the Maastricht Treaty. A chronological approach has been adopted as the most appropriate in demonstrating some of the intricate manoeuvres which characterised British diplomacy in the region at crucial junctures of the war.

While the urban crisis debate has expanded to examine a variety of American cities, the general exploration of how African Americans have responded to, and challenged, racial and urban inequality remains focused on grassroots political and community activism. This account of postwar New York City seeks to examine how structural discrimination created racial inequality, how African Americans suffered from a complex system of social consequences that further marginalized them, and how a politically conscious art form emerged from the destitution of the urban crisis. As illustrated through Robert Merton’s theory of Anomie, restricted opportunity for social and economic advancement created an environment vulnerable to crime. Not only were African American neighbourhoods susceptible to crime, but the conservative agenda tended to demonize African Americans as dangerous criminals, targeting them in the rise of mass incarceration. Resources were funneled into imprisoning more people, and African Americans were disproportionately represented in the American corrections system. As a result of this, African Americans were consistently excluded from certain jobs and denied basic civil rights. This thesis will also explore how African Americans responded to, and challenged, racial and urban inequality through the arts. The Black Arts Movement emerged from New York City in the mid-1960s. The movement was both confrontational and socially conscious. Artists sought to articulate the struggles of urban African Americans while empowering, educating, and protesting racial injustices. The Black Arts Movement was fundamentally political, and a predecessor to the Hip Hop culture which emerged from the South Bronx neighborhood of New York City.

Published academic research on the social history of small county borough police forces during the post-war period, in England and Wales, is virtually non-existent. Yet these forces represented a third of the police establishment. Moreover, the period saw the most radical transformation of police practices since the formation of the police. A social characteristic of the period was an increase in individualism and a rejection of traditional authority that occurred in tandem with changes to the economy and a boom in consumerism and technology. Such modification in the way society operated is termed as ‘detraditionalisation’. For the first time this research answers the question, ‘what was the experience of a constable in a small county borough police force whilst facing the change process brought about by detraditionalisation in society, and changes intrinsic to the police, in the period 1947-1968’. Using oral history methods to create unique primary data from the testimony of 36 former constables employed in a small county borough police force in the north east of England, this thesis captures their viewpoint of the recruiting process, training and socialisation. It chronicles their recollection of day-to-day duty and captures their experience of significant changes in working practices. It provides a constable’s perspective; a ‘bottom up’ approach. The problem of recruiting experienced at a national level was not universal. Indoctrination and socialisation of constables into a strong occupational culture nurtured ‘easing’ activities and ensured a strict hierarchy within peer groups, and the organisation. The job offered limited scope to express individualism. Foot patrol consisted of mundane repetitive duty within an organisation requiring strict conformity where new recruits often struggled to ‘fit in’. The introduction of technology and new patrol systems, such as personal radio communication, greater mobility and the unit beat system, increased the demands made of the police rather than reducing them. Generational differences in attitudes and opinions of constables were most apparent at times of change. However, transformations to policing methods together with amalgamation into a larger force led to improved man-management, enhanced career prospects and greater standardisation in procedures. The working conditions of a small conservative institution, resistant to changing its traditional approach to constables, stifled individualism and enforced conformism. This added to the difficulties of policing a society in the process of modernisation, and in a state of flux. Technology and amalgamation however, paved the way for greater individualism. Detraditionalisation within constables was not a concept welcomed in the small county borough police force.

This study addresses Government media policy throughout the Falklands War of 1982. It considers the effectiveness, and charts the development of, Falklands-related public relations’ policy by departments including, but not limited to, the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The literature of the 1980s concerning the media during the conflict still dominates the historiography of the subject. This thesis is the first significant reappraisal of the work offered during the decade in which the war occurred. It is informed by recently released archive material and newly conducted interviews, and boasts an extensive analysis of the content of the printed press during the conflict. There are a number of central hypotheses contained in this research (as well as many lesser theories). This thesis argues that media policy observed by the MoD in relation to the Task Force journalists was ill-prepared, reactionary, driven by internal MoD motivation and that ultimately, control of policy was devolved to the men on the ground. This thesis advances that MoD media policy in Britain, while as reactive as that rolled out to the Task Force, became more effective as the war progressed. The MoD failed to adequately cater for the British media until the middle of May 1982, at which time a number of sensible and potentially successful initiatives were introduced – specifically the News Release Group and the Military Briefing Group. It is also the contention of this work that the machinery developed centrally, by the Cabinet Office and No.10 Press Office in the form of the South Atlantic Presentation Unit and Information Group, had the potential to be successful additions to the regular organisation of Government. However, neither had enough authority and were plagued by departmental rivalries. While the media-related initiatives of the MoD ultimately became more successful, those of wider Government became less effective. Finally, this thesis provides a serious analysis of the printed press in order to substantiate the hypothesis that much of what had been argued about the printed press was generalised and oversimplified – its reliance on Argentine source material, its jingoistic nature, the dominance of reports on armed conflict and its aversion to a diplomatic settlement.

This thesis examines the utility of coercion theory in complex contemporary conflicts through a study of the Afghan conflict as it unfolded in the provinces of Faryab and Kunduz from 2005 to 2012. The last two decades have produced ample examples of incidents where the UN, international alliances or states have found it necessary to use force in order to coerce states or armed groups to stop unacceptable activities or change their behaviour. However, the potential of military force to induce behavioural change in such conflicts is understudied and poorly understood. In the Afghan conflict the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) together with the Afghan security forces applied force in order to influence the Taliban and other groups who violently opposed the elected government to change their behaviour. Although neither ISAF nor the participating nations had articulated a coercive strategy, force was used consistent with coercion theory on a number of occasions. Coercion theory consists of a number of assumptions and presuppositions, the existence of which should be present on the ground for theory to have utility. This thesis argues that these were generally not, or only to a limited degree present in the Afghan conflict. It further argues that in the cases where ISAF and its Afghan allies applied force consistent with theory, it did generally not translate to the desired outcomes, in particular when coercion represented the dominant effort. This thesis consequently argues that coercion theory is not well suited to provide explanatory power to or predict outcomes in conflicts that are comparable to the conflict in Afghanistan. In particular, theory’s presumption of unitary actors, the rationality presumption and the notion of the credible threat is insufficient. Theory’s notion of coercive mechanisms also assumes a connection between human behaviour and what may influence it that is overly simplistic. This consequently proposes a revised set of assumptions and presuppositions as well as a revised understanding of mechanisms that acknowledges that coercion alone is rarely sufficient to instil sustainable change.