Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 260-268). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 260-268). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-117). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2003. Graduate Programme in Geography. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-168). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss&rft%5Fval%5Ffmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss:MQ99340

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2008. / Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Education. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 426-441)

The centrality of the police in everyday life means police officers are in position of power to actively support or threaten democratic activities (Sklansky, 2008) for example during protests. In democracies, policing duties should be performed in ways that sustain democratic values, rather than undermine them (Loader, 2006), yet that is not always the reality. Police training is one of the tools for aligning officers' behaviour with societal norms; it is considered a protection against the possibility that police officers abuse the wide-ranging powers they hold (Manning, 2010). Training programs are therefore a basic feature of all police forces' organizational approach. Despite its centrality, training has not received extensive academic attention; there is a pressing need to understand the impact of training on police behaviour and the mechanisms thorough which it operates (Skogan & Frydl, 2004). This thesis attempts to advance the evidence-base of democratic police training following the Medical Research Council's framework for the development and evaluation of complex social interventions (Craig et al., 2008). The Israeli Border Police was chosen as the context to examine the potential of training to advance democratic norms. The three stages of the research project included: theoretical modelling of the existing complex training intervention to assess its alignment with existing evidence; participatory development and piloting of a training curriculum on policing of protests in a democracy that used an Adult Education approach and introduced Procedural Justice-related components; and a pilot quasi-randomised study to evaluate this training. Analysis and reporting are carried out in a way that allows assessment of prospective scale-up and generalisability. Flowing from the empirical work, four strands of theoretical contributions are put forward. First, a theoretical model of police training is proposed, drawing on social psychology constructs. Second, contact theory, which originates in peace education, is proposed as a possible platform for designing both police training and their evaluation studies. Third, four factors limiting the efficacy of Procedural Justice & Legitimacy based training interventions in deeply divided societies are outlined. Fourth, the Border Police case study is used to substantiate the value of participatory research methods for advancing knowledge translation and evidence-based policing.

This thesis addresses the question of the shift in the sectarian framing of political conflict and violence in Lebanon by focusing on the period between 2000 and 2010. Lebanon represents an interesting case where the saliencies of sectarian dichotomies have been drastically remodelled in only a few years following the Hariri assassination in 2005. Whereas most studies focus on long-term ethnic and sectarian conflicts, few have addressed the issue of fast remodelling of sectarian divisions in times of political turmoil. How do sectarian schisms shift in a short period of time? Why do some political changes affect sectarian dichotomies and not others? What factors can push some people to take part in clashes framed as sectarian violence? In short, how does political closure happen along sectarian lines? In order to answer these questions, this thesis uses a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods to disentangle the relationship between political change and sectarianism. Building on the social movement literature, it argues that street mobilisations, understood as peaceful or violent collective action, are important mechanisms through which political conflict can assume sectarian overtones. It relies on a compiled dataset of protest events that occurred in Beirut between 2000 and 2010, and applies network analysis techniques in order to study coalition formations and shifts in alliances. This analysis is combined with semi-structured interviews with a sample of 29 residents of Beirut neighbourhoods that witnessed violent clashes in 2007/8. The analysis of my data suggests that the Hariri assassination marked a turning point in the dynamics of contentious politics in Lebanon, and acted as a catalyst for the emergence and consolidation of new coalitions and sectarian dichotomies. The study argues that sectarian political parties are the main channels through which political and sectarian depictions become interchangeable. It suggests that in order for a political shift to be understood in sectarian terms, two main factors need to be taken into account: (i) the competing political parties should represent sectarian communities that are able to compete demographically (in terms of size), and (ii) the competing parties should be able to represent the majority of their sectarian communities (intra-sectarian homogeneity). The analysis of my qualitative data explores the mechanisms at work during periods of collective violence, and shows that drivers such as peer pressure, neighbourhood-level networks, material grievances, pleasure in agency, ideology and previous fighting experience seem to explain individual decisions to participate in collective violence more than sectarian hatred. In fact, rather than being the primary cause of the violence, sectarian cleavages seem to have been crystallised by the 2007/8 episodes of violence. Consequently, this thesis concludes that whereas the conflict in Lebanon today is often understood and framed in sectarian terms, a closer analysis suggests that the conflict at a macro level is essentially political and its implications at the micro level can best be understood beyond the notion of sectarianism.

This study aimed at investigating the legitimacy of violence as political act, especially the issue of vandalism surrounding service delivery protests in South Africa. The investigation was conducted in a small township around Soweto called Kliptown as a case study. This study was necessitated by the increasing number of violent service delivery protests around all provinces in the country. The statement of the problem provided a foundation within which the aims of the study were explained. The importance of this research cannot be justified enough especially given the mounting daily protests witnessed over service delivery by different communities from different provinces around the country.

Many have described South Africa as a protest-rich nation. Some have defended this high level of protest as an indication that this country has a functional democracy where peoples’ right to raise their dissatisfaction with government through protesting is protected. These protests take different forms, with some displaying signs of criminality where protesters vandalise private and public property, while others proceed peacefully. This project examines and interprets the dynamics and circumstances surrounding these events and processes through empirical research, and explores their relationship to development. This dissertation attempts to establish what motivates people to engage in these protests, to assess the impact and consequences of protests in South African local communities, and to assess whether the different forms of protest were effective in compelling government to address protesters' developmental demands. The research undertaken was of a qualitative nature, and the researcher sourced the information from community members and community leaders. As the process of collecting empirical data unfolded, it became clear that the Marianridge and Umlazi Z Section case studies presented in this dissertation indicated that developmental local government without public participation is ineffective.