The preoccupation in the past decades with theorizing radicalization in order to prevent violent extremism has left deradicalization undertheorized. As the number of returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) is expected to increase as a result of the anticipated military and intelligence advancement on terrorism, the reintegration imperative stresses the urgency to develop comprehensive reintegration and deradicalization strategies. This study seeks to contribute to filling the research deficit begging for empirical data informed by FTFs’ experiences of, and challenges in, reintegration, through qualitative interviews with returning FTFs in Kwale County, Kenya; a county producing a relative majority of Kenyan recruits to Al Shabaab who are now offered amnesty on return to their county of origin. The Life Psychology framework, which assumes an inherent human strive to obtain a good life, i.e. life embeddedness, is adopted for the analysis. The study finds that returnees commit to reintegration in the absence of other alternatives, due to economic incentives and longing for acceptance. It confirms that the process requires the societal motivation in facilitation, but will fail without the sustained commitment of the returning FTF. The study further establishes that returning FTFs are not able to obtain a flow in life embeddedness, which would indicate inability to reintegrate. Yet, many of the interviewed returning FTFs express the contrary, which challenges the concept of life embeddedness as an indicator for reintegration. The study further challenges the general assumption that deradicalization is a precondition for reintegration, as it finds that radicalized individuals are able to reintegrate into communities of origin without deserting held radical beliefs, if those communities share radical sentiments. This study contributes to filling the deficit in empirical data, which when advanced will work to avert security threats posed by returning FTFs and enable utilizing the potential of the phenomenon to counter violent extremism.

This research investigates the use of an artistic methodology to explore embodied experiences related to reintegration of returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs). The methodology combines bodily, sensory and cognitive aspects of individual and intersubjective processes – dimensions which have long been neglected in research on reintegration. The research seeks to examine how the artistic body mapping methodology can be used in exploratory and participatory research aiming to promote the reintegration of returning FTFs. The intersubjective body mapping methodology, developed as part of the research, is used and assessed in order to explore its utility for advancing dialogue in addressing challenges related to the reintegration process, including understanding and trust, as experienced by returning FTFs, community members and security personnel in Mombasa, Kenya. The research confirms that the use of intersubjective body mapping is a powerful tool in the context of reintegration, as it serves to enhance understanding for the self and others, which correlates with trust, while allowing for communicating empirical knowledge beyond conventional means.

L'érosion du système westphalien est devenue un *lieu commun* du discours contemporain et de la littérature savante sur les métamorphoses de l'État, de la souveraineté, de la guerre, du territoire, etc. S'inscrivant dans cette brèche, ce mémoire met le curseur sur le rôle des acteurs territoriaux non-étatiques dans la fragmentation de la souveraineté et la segmentation du territoire, à travers l'étude des territorialités émergentes qui décrivent un seuil d'indétermination entre des formes politiques pré-westphaliennes et westphaliennes. L'avènement post-westphalien, en réalité, confond parfois ses traits avec des formes politiques pré-étatiques et des techniques de gouvernement pré-westphaliennes. Sur un premier versant, l'étude des guerres intraétatiques post-guerre froide dans le Sud global a permis de diagnostiquer une prolifération d'entités territoriales non-étatiques, ces *hétérotopies de l'État* territorial westphalien, doublement symptomatique de la saillance de l'enjeu territorial. D'une part, l'émergence de ces formes ontologiquement hybrides, parfois mimétiques et souvent antagoniques, trahit la faiblesse de la greffe de l'importation de l'État westphalien dans le Sud global. D'autre part, la genèse de ces entités émergentes dans des contextes de guerre de déconsolidation des États postcoloniaux plaide en faveur d'une lecture contingente de la thèse belliciste de la formation de l'État de Charles Tilly. Le MNLA au Mali, le PYD en Syrie et Al Shabaab en Somalie ont fait l'objet de l'étude de cas multiple ayant permis d'établir que la puissance performative des toponymes et les vertus pharmacologiques de la guerre -- c'est-à-dire qu'elle est le *pharmakon* de l'État (à la fois son *poison* et son *antidote*). Sur un autre versant, au creux des *actes de discours* des acteurs territoriaux non-étatiques, une relation positive a été nouée entre la mobilisation discursive de toponymes et la prégnance de l'enjeu territorial dans les théâtres de conflits étudiés. La performativité hétérotoponymique a permis de lier l'effectuation discursive du toponyme et le champ des pratiques politiques, à travers les modalités de l'appropriation, de la conquête et du contrôle de territoires que les acteurs non-étatiques parviennent à soustraire à l'empire des États du Sud global en échec de monopole souverain. / The erosion of the Westphalian system has become a *commonplace* in contemporary discourse and scientific literature on the metamorphoses of the State, sovereignty, war, territory, etc. In accordance with this rupture, this dissertation focuses on the role of territorial non-state actors (TNSAs) in the fragmentation of sovereignty and the segmentation of territory, through the study of emerging territorialities which describe a threshold of indetermination between pre-Westphalian and Westphalian political forms. Indeed, the post-Westphalian world sometimes confuses its characteristics with pre-state political forms and pre-Westphalian governing techniques. On the one hand, the study of post-Cold War intra-state conflicts in the countries of the Global South has made it possible to diagnose a proliferation of territorial non-state entities (TNSEs). These *heterotopias* of the Westphalian territorial states are doubly symptomatic of the salience of the territorial issue since the end of the great world wars. Firstly, the emergence of these ontologically hybrid forms, sometimes mimetic and often antagonistic, betrays the weakness of the imported Westphalian state into the global South. Secondly, the genesis of these emerging entities in contexts of war of deconsolidation of postcolonial states pleads in favor of a contingent reading of the bellicist theory of state formation by Charles Tilly. The MNLA in Mali, the YPD in Syria and Al-Shabaab in Somalia were subjected to the multiple case study that established the *performative power* of toponyms and the *pharmacological virtues of war* -- namely as the state's *pharmakon* (both *poison* and *antidote*). On another side, amid the *speech acts* of non-state territorial actors, a positive relationship has been established between the discursive mobilization of the territory and the significance of the territorial issue in the studied theaters of conflicts. The heterotoponymic performativity made it possible to link the discursive effectuation of toponymy to the field of political practices, through the modalities of appropriation, conquest and control of territories that non-state actors subtract from the empire of States of the global South in failure of sovereign monopoly.

With the rise of global transnational terrorist networks (GTTNs), there has been an increase in scholarly output on the subject. While many scholars have focused on the ways in which these networks enable terrorist organizations to achieve their goals, few have studied the transformative impact that GTTNs have on group cohesion. In order to fill this gap, I seek to answer the question how, if at all, GTTNs affect the likelihood of armed groups experiencing fragmentation. In doing so, I propose three ways in which GTTNs can influence cohesion among their members and explore these in the cases of al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, while using the Taliban as a counterfactual. Although I find that both GTTN members and non-members experience fragmentation, the ways in which fragmentation manifests itself differs. Whereas the Taliban experienced fragmentation following key events, al-Shabaab and Boko Haram experienced splits as a result of long-term processes. Thus, GTTN membership ostensibly reinforces internal processes that may cause factions to split from the organization, thereby increasing the risk of fragmentation. However, more research is required on the different ways through which GTTNs exert influence over their members and the effect this has on the risk of fragmentation.

In our era, digital technology is one of the fastest-changing areas. It impacts our private life, well-being, economics, politics and warfare. This essay intends to answer how digital transformation affects combats and state and non-state actors and also how these digitalised combats compromise social sustainability. The findings include social media and online platforms, dark web and cyberterrorism, cryptocurrency, remote sensing and surveillance, machine learning and AI, and digitally enabled strategies. The analysis was done by the Centre of Gravity model, social sustainability and securitisation theory. The thesis follows a comparative case study approach about Kenya and Nigeria therefore the essay address al-Shabaab and Boko Haram as the two prominent terrorist groups and the empirical data are related specifically to these countries and these diasporas.

The question of how armed group ideology influences its behaviour has been tentatively explored in the past decade. However, which role distinct ideological commitments play in civilian targeting has not been satisfactorily discussed thus far. This thesis turns to research on genocide and mass violence and incorporates the concepts of ‘exclusionary ideologies’ and ‘threat perceptions’ to fill this research gap. It addresses the following question: to what extent do exclusionary ideologies of armed groups influence their use of violence against civilians during civil conflicts? When revolutionary armed groups pursue their goals, threat perceptions determine which groups are considered legitimate targets for attack. Therefore, it is hypothesized that exclusionary groups will employ more violence against civilians than inclusionary groups because the former have a more expanded understanding of legitimate targeting than the latter. Through a structured focused comparison, discourse analysis and process tracing applied to the cases of Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, moderate support for this hypothesis is found. It is shown that both armed groups to varying extents invoke threat perceptions regarding certain out-groups to legitimize and rationalise their patterns of violence. Nonetheless, a descent into indiscriminate violence by Boko Haram and data shortage of Al-Shabaab attacks warrant caution.

Although the armed conflict-drought nexus has gained increased attention lately, it isstill unclear what the causal mechanism looks like. In order to gain more knowledgeabout this I have attempted to answer the question of why some conflicts escalateduring drought while others do not by conducting a cross case comparison of theconflict between Al-Shabaab and the government of Somalia and the conflict betweenthe Tuaregs and the government of Mali. The results show that drought could lead toboth escalation and de-escalation of armed conflict, acting mostly as a trigger. Themost important thing for people is the access to vital resources, such as food andwater, and their group affiliation can change based on who provides these resources.This could show policy makers what to focus on in order to prevent radicalisation butit first and foremost gives a ground to researchers that want to investigate thedrought-armed conflict nexus further.