This thesis aims to contribute to the knowledge gap on religious peacebuilding. Previous research on the role of religion has, to a large extent, focused on its destructive potential as a cause of conflict and religious strife. At the same time, there are examples of when religious actors have drawn from religious values to promote peace and reconciliation between conflicting parties. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to explore in what ways religious peacebuilding promotes conflict transformation between different religious groups during intra-state conflict. By further examining the methods and initiatives used by local religious actors at the grassroots in the Moluccas in Indonesia, the thesis aims to analyze the effects on the peace process. The research method for the study is an instrumental case study analysis, and the thesis applies a combination of two theoretical frameworks focusing on conflict transformation and success factors linked to religious peacebuilding to analyze the empirical material. The results suggest that religious actors used a wide range of methods and initiatives for peacebuilding in the Moluccas, and they made significant contributions to the de-escalation of conflict and opportunities for building sustainable peace. Through the lens of the theoretical framework, it is possible to acknowledge that the methods and initiatives clearly relate to explanations linked to conflict transformation, as well as success factors in religious peacebuilding. The thesis concludes that religious peacebuilding was essential for the peace process in the Moluccas, and that local religious actors showed great capacity in constructively using religion to build peace.

Tandis que le Burundi entame une phase clé dans la réconciliation nationale, l’immense travail de la mémoire collective initié par la signature des Accords de Paix d’Arusha en août 2000 offre une opportunité à la pénétration américaine de s’affirmer dans la Consolidation de la Paix dans la sous Région. L'erreur serait de voir l’investissement américain dans la Communauté de l'Afrique de l'Est comme un phénomène récent. Or, depuis l'ère postcoloniale jusqu'à la phase actuelle de la mise en place des mécanismes de réconciliation et prévention contre le génocide, la présence américaine en matière de politique africaine remonte bien plus loin ainsi que le prouve son entreprise missionnaire en Afrique. Beaucoup de travaux ont traité de la question des relations géopolitiques entre colonisateurs et colonisés en Afrique sub-saharienne. Cependant, peu d'études ont relevé l’importance ou l’ancienneté des rapports religieux et de leur influence dans les affaires politiques et sociales dans les pays de l'Afrique de l'Est tels que le Burundi ou le Rwanda. Expliquer la Politique Etrangère américaine en la rattachant à son investissement religieux dans la sous Région permet d'éviter une simplification erronée des intérêts américains. Notre étude du rôle des missions américaines et de leurs rapports complexes avec les missions chrétiennes des anciennes puissances coloniales nous permet de saisir sous un regard neuf les dynamiques politiques des Etats-Unis dans la région des Grands Lacs en Afrique de l’Est. L’enjeu du projet de la Commission Verite et Réconciliation au Burundi offre un espace politique et religieux unique pour une étude à la rencontre de ces différents acteurs religieux. L’instrumentalisation de la justice transitionnelle au Burundi souligne non seulement l’affrontement des processus de justice et de pardon en période post-conflit mais elle relève la difficile négociation des mémoires plurielles sous fond d’intérêts géopolitiques. / As Burundi begins a key phase in national reconciliation, the vast work of collective memory initiated by the Arusha Peace Accords in August 2000 offers an opportunity to the US to penetrate and strategically position them in the Great Lakes’ Region Peacebuilding. A mistake would be to see such U.S. involvement in the East Africa Community as a recent phenomenon. Since the postcolonial era until the current phase of reconciliation mechanisms and genocide prevention, the American visibility in African politics goes back in time as its missionary activities prove it. Many studies explored the question on geopolitical relations between former colonial countries and colonial powers in sub-Sahara Africa. Yet, few pointed out the relevance or the deep religious relationships and their influence in sociopolitical events in East African countries such as Burundi or Rwanda. To explain the U.S. Foreign Policy linking it to its religious investment in the Great Lake prevents a misleading simplification of U.S. interests. Our study of the role of American missions and their complex relations with Christian missions of former colonial powers offers us a new look at the U.S. political dynamics in the Great Lakes’ Region in East Africa. The challenge of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission provides a unique political and religious space for a study of these different religious actors. The use of the transitional justice in Burundi underlines not only the confrontation of processes of justice and forgiveness in post-conflict periods, but it underlines the difficult negotiation of collective memories along with geopolitical interests.

There is an ample body of literature which seek to investigate the role of religion in armed conflict. Yet, the role of religion in unarmed civil resistance has not received an equal amount of scholarly attention. Apart from some single and comparative case studies showcasing the pertinent role of religion on nonviolent campaign success, little has been done to investigate its effect across broader cases. By conducting a large-N analysis of 143 nonviolent campaigns from 1975 to 2013 globally, this study aims to fill in the research gap and answer the following question: How does religious support affect the success of nonviolent campaigns? Furthermore, this study seeks to investigate whether unique forms of religious support, i.e. traditional support and religiopolitical support, have a different effect on nonviolent campaign success. The results indicate that religious support does not have a statistically significant effect on the success of nonviolent campaigns. The study also reveals that religious support type does not have a statistically different effect on the chance of nonviolent campaign success. Thus, this study challenges the generalizability of case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of religiously-supported nonviolent campaigns. Avenues for future research include conducting a large-N study on the effect of religious support on the level of mass mobilisation and the resilience capacity of nonviolent campaigns.

This study addresses the concept of fair governance based on an empirical study with marginalized groups, primarily Muslims, and their interaction with government agencies as its salient locus of investigation. Employing the research method of in-depth interviewing, I present a qualitative analysis of 35 semi-structured interviews with Muslims and government administrators. The methodological framework based on which these interviews are interpreted is rooted in the tradition of social constructivism as manifested in the grounded theory perspective of Charmaz. My examination of the hitherto unspoken political visions of the study participants and their shared perspectives offers pragmatic solutions to create greater equity and fairer inclusion of the marginalized in civic and political dialogues and in the administrative practice of government. Remarkably, the cultural changes towards justice and inclusion in the Government of British Columbia manifest that fair government is committed to creating a fundamental transformation in favour of marginalized groups. I find the most promising approach for such transformation occurs where bottom up and dynamic approaches of civil society are aligned with top down approaches of government to justice. The findings suggest that fair governance enhances its functionality and capacity through reflecting universal universalism in its policies and practices, heartening public spirituality and moving towards a more humane modernity rather than the extant western model of modernity. Thus, fair governance calls for diversity in expression of religious identity and challenges the mistaken images of Muslim women. Subsequently, fair government welcomes female religious actors, who act upon religious values, to its administration and respects their choice of clothing encompassing the scarf. Fair government, at all levels, ameliorates the ethical standards of its employees and employs authentic leaders, who act in a virtuous manner, care about employees’ deeply held values, and implement direct communication with staff. Such government supports legislative and constitutional reforms to consider a different outlook of the marginalized on political and social concerns, respects religious practices, honours Muslims’ identity and interpretation of life, and supports individuals who aim to improve humanity in Canada and its occupational settings. Rethinking Islamophobia in the context of the distinct need of government administrators for the institutional education about Islam, as a key finding of the study, depicts the emergence of “Islamoexploria”, as a new expression, which I coin. In my study, there is ample evidence to suggest that a sample of government administrators in British Columbia is in the age of post Islamophobia since they, as pioneers, have passed the stage of Islamophobia and entered a new era of “Islamoexploria”. Thus, they have produced the profound socio-cultural changes towards understanding Islam by shifting from fear of, ostensibly, the unknown to knowledge about the unknown and to approaches that are more sympathetic to Muslims. This finding suggests that fair government facilitates the journey from western Islamophobia, a demonstration of old racism, to “Islamoexploria”, a contemporary thirst for knowledge about Islam. Concurrently, Muslims remain responsible to contribute to fairness at large by role modeling their religious values, which greatly promote justice, compassionate attitudes, and humanitarian actions. / Graduate / 2022-12-07