Recent empirical studies have suggested that the implementation of a comprehensive peace agreement is the primary predictor of whether or not peace will last after a civil war. However, it is less certain what factors that lead to high implementation rates of peace agreements. Qualitative research has suggested that state capacity is a necessary condition for peace agreement implementation. Quantitively the relationship between state capacity and peace agreement implementation has only been controlled for in two studies. In this paper it is argued that this relationship has not been studied in a sufficient manner in either of them. Consequently, this study measures the relationship between state capacity and peace agreement implementation rate, operationalizing state capacity as the extraction rate and political reach of the state. This relationship is tested on 34 comprehensive peace agreements during the years of 1989 to 2015. However, the hypothesis did not find support as extraction rate has a negative correlation while political reach has a positive correlation. These findings are significant as they further the study on peace agreement implementation rate; how best to measure state capacity and moreover these findings can become important for what policies to prioritize in order to increase the implementation rate concerning peace agreements.

This thesis aims to shed light on the differences between offensive and a specific version of neoclassical realism on their expectations regarding how a great power shapes its environment. The neoclassical framework proposed in this work constitutes an independent variable captured by the polarity in the system, an intervening variable of state capacity, and a dependent variable of revisionist foreign policy. It is argued that along with multipolarity and bipolarity, there is a need to incorporate unipolarity in structural realist accounts. Analysed from this perspective, great powers feel high external pressure due to the nature of unipolarity, which diminishes the value of pure structural frameworks. In this respect, the incorporation of state-level factors provides more reliable analyses for explaining anxious great powers` strive for regional hegemony. As a result, neoclassical realism is better equipped to explain Russia`s revisionist foreign policy.

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The essay uses secondary research, and comparative methodology. The aim of the essay is to establish if natural resources plays any role in the conflicts experienced by regions which have continuously seen civil wars, and if so, to what degree. The two cases examined in this thesis are of South Sudan and Gambella in Ethiopia. A comparative analysis is used due to the approaches in political science studies, especially for cases that show huge differences or huge similarities as well as data sources in use of literature reviews. The results show a trivial effect of expertise as what previous scholars established had been confirmed. Furthermore, it proves that equal sharing and usage of natural resources is crucial for preventing conflicts. This study emphasizes the need to understand the relationship between natural resources and the risk for civil conflict, along with the scholars previous findings.

[pt] Na esteira dos trabalhos que se propõem a analisar as especificidades contextuais que circulam os processos relacionados à política curricular nacional em implementação, a Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC), este trabalho busca contribuir para o campo, de forma a analisar a implantação da BNCC à luz do referencial teórico voltado para o conceito de capacidades estatais, tendo em vista a escassez de estudos que articulam tais conceitos no bojo das investigações sobre a política curricular vigente e a atuação municipal neste processo. Entender quem coordena e como se dá a coordenação da implementação da Base no contexto de um Estado cada vez mais heterárquico, envolve compreender a atuação e a interação dos atores e instituições envolvidos. Tal aspecto mostra-se de grande relevância social e científica, uma vez que envolve a constituição do projeto de sociedade de um grupo de ideologias e interesses específicos, a partir de um ponto de vista teórico ainda pouco explorado. Dessa forma, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo geral investigar a atuação da Undime e de duas secretarias municipais de educação na implementação da BNCC, focalizando o mapeamento das capacidades e subcapacidades estatais mobilizadas pelas Secretarias municipais que implementam a BNCC em seus respectivos territórios e pela Undime, além de compreender como se caracterizam as interações estabelecidas entre governo federal-Undime, governo federal-municípios e Undime-municípios. A pesquisa desenvolvida tem caráter qualitativo e foi realizada por meio de análise de documentos e de entrevistas com um representante da Undime-RJ e representantes de duas secretarias municipais de educação do estado do Rio de Janeiro. Os principais resultados apontam que a Undime, como um ator político híbrido dotado de capacidades estatais, desempenha relevante papel como articuladora do regime de colaboração, de modo a se estabelecer no cenário das políticas educacionais como representante dos interesses e demandas dos municípios diante do governo federal, e, por outro lado, exerce uma função decisiva na garantia de adesão por parte dos municípios às políticas educacionais mobilizadas pelo governo central. Além disso, o estudo apontou que a implementação da BNCC nos municípios estudados, no âmbito da (re)elaboração dos currículos locais, foi promovida por ações e estruturações internas das secretarias municipais, que mobilizaram subcapacidades estatais para alinhamento de seus currículos à BNCC, sem intervenções diretas de outras instituições públicas ou privadas. / [en] In the wake of works that propose to analyze the contextual specificities that circulate the processes related to the national curriculum policy in implementation, the Common National Curriculum Base (BNCC), this paper seeks to contribute to the field, in order to analyze the implementation of the BNCC in the light of the theoretical framework focused on the concept of state capabilities, given thescarcity of studies that articulate such concepts in the context of investigations on the current curriculum policy and municipal performance in this process. Understanding who coordinates and how the coordination of the Base implementation takes place in the context of an increasingly heterarchical State involves understanding the performance and interaction of the actors and institutions involved. This aspect is of great social and scientific relevance, since itinvolves the constitution of the social project of a group of ideologies and specific interests, from a theoretical point of view still little explored. Thus, this research aims to investigate the performance of Undime and two municipal secretaries of education in the implementation of the BNCC, focusing on the mapping of state capabilities and sub-capabilities mobilized by the municipal secretaries that implement the BNCC in their respective territories and by Undime, in addition to understanding how the interactions established between federal government- Undime, federal government-municipalities and Undime-municipalities are characterized. The research developed is qualitative in nature and was conducted through analysis of documents and interviews with a representative of Undime-RJ and representatives of two municipal secretaries of education in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The main results indicate that Undime, as a hybrid political actor endowed with state capabilities, plays a relevant role as an articulator of the collaboration regime, in order to establish itself in the educational policy scenario as a representative of the interests and demands of municipalities before the federal government, and, on the other hand, plays a decisive role in ensuring adherence by municipalities to educational policies mobilized by the central government. Furthermore, the study pointed out that the implementation of the BNCC in the studied municipalities, in the context of the (re)development of local curricula, was promoted by internal actions and structuring of municipal departments, which mobilized state sub-capacities to align their curricula to the BNCC, without direct interventions from other public or private institutions.

As the Twin Towers fell on September 11th of 2001, so fell the U.S. domestic citizenry’s Fourth Amendment right to search, seizure, and general privacy. Beyond the Fourth Amendment, various legal barriers put up to protect citizens’ rights through the advancement of surveillance technology throughout the twentieth century would also fall, succumbing to just one piece of legislation and its subsequent restructuring of government powers: the USA PATRIOT Act. This expansion was explained through the lens of state-of-emergency during war time. The precedence of states-of-emergency as a period when legal and bureaucratic boundaries can be crossed to serve the greater good allowed for the execution of drastic surveillance measures which would previously be confined by the boundaries of law, and to a grieving public and a government scrambling for some sense of national security, this seemed to be the appropriate course of action. But simple state-of-emergency or war-time operations cannot serve to explain the existing capacity for conducting surveillance that the U.S. government seemed to already have within their arsenal, ready to employ on a wide scale. The analysis of domestic surveillance history to follow raises a particular kind of state-of-emergency, a racial state-of-emergency. This notion involves domestic, racial groups and organizations, disenfranchised from legality through perceptions of race, that may serve as playgrounds for surveillance development outside of public scrutiny. It is through these instances, when the existence of racial hierarchies allows for the framing of the political nonconformity of certain racial groups as a valid threat to national safety, that surveillance capacity may be expanded; it is the culmination of instances which allow for surveillance institutions to possess the capability to enact a full-force surveillance state without delay or barrier.

How does state capacity affect the state's ability to intervene in events of communal violence? Communal violence is conflict that occurs between two non-state groups that share a communal identity. The state controls the monopoly on the use of force, so it should be expected that the state will control these violent events. Research on intervention has shown that a state's military is an important indication of their ability to intervene. The study of other elements of state capacity such as the bureaucracy and political institutions have been largely ignored as factors to explain intervention. This paper builds on these elements of state capacity to argue that intervention can be explained by the state's military, bureaucracy, and the institutions that are in place. This argument has support from an empirical analysis conducted through replication data in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2010.

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Nunca antes na história os seres humanos conviveram com tantos robôs. Nesse contexto, a intensificação do processo de robotização militar está intimamente relacionada à emergência da Era Digital e à digitalização das forças armadas – entendida como a utilização acelerada de TIC para o desempenho de funções militares tradicionais. Apenas nos Estados Unidos, mais de trinta sistemas estão em desenvolvimento e/ou em operação neste momento. Estima-se que o país detenha mais de vinte mil robôs capazes de operar em terra, no mar e no ar. Este trabalho dedica-se ao estudo amplo do processo de robotização das forças armadas. Mais especificamente, o trabalho busca cumprir dois objetivos principais. O primeiro está relacionado à necessidade de compreender a relação entre guerra e tecnologia na Era Digital. O segundo objetivo da tese é verificar de que forma as forças armadas lidam com a incorporação desses sistemas na atualidade. Para tanto, o trabalho utiliza um modelo desenvolvido para auxiliar no planejamento e na análise de capacidades militares conhecido como “desenho de força”. A pesquisa foi baseada, mas não está restrita, ao estudo de caso dos Estados Unidos, a partir do qual busca-se oferecer ao leitor lições derivadas da experiência estadunidense. / Humans have never lived with so many robots. In this context, the intensification of military robotization is closely related to the emergence of the Digital Age and to the digitization of the armed forces – understood as the accelerated use of ICT to perform traditional military functions. In the United States, more than thirty systems are currently under development and/or operating. It is estimated that the country has more than twenty thousand robots capable of operating on land, at sea and in the air. This work is therefore dedicated to the broad study of military robotization. More specifically, it seeks to fulfill two main objectives. The first one is related to the need to understand the relationship between war and technology in the Digital Age. The second objective of the thesis is to verify how the military has been dealing with the incorporation of such systems. In order to do so, the dissertation uses a model developed to aid in the planning and analysis of military capabilities known as “force design”. It draws from, but is not limited to, studying the case of the United States, from which the dissertation intends to derive broader lessons applicable to other contexts.

Moving beyond a focus on institutional frameworks to the deeper forms of politics and power relations that determine their functioning, this thesis explores the political dynamics of growth and structural transformation in Kenya. Deploying a conceptual framework that combines political settlement analysis, which explores how the underlying structure of power shapes incentives for elites to adopt developmental forms of governance, with two concepts from the state business relations literature, the deals and rents spaces, which together link macro level political settlement analysis with a meso level analysis of specific economic actors, the thesis offers new understandings for Kenyas economic development. It argues that Kenyas period of comparatively good growth during the 1960s and 1970s, generally attributed to the inheritance of reasonably coherent institutions at independence as well as favourable external dynamics, actually owed more to Kenyas relatively stable political settlement, which allowed ruling elites to unveil a closed ordered deals regime that provided favoured investors, predominantly from President Kenyattas Kikuyu ethnic group, but also foreign firms, with sufficient credible commitment to invest in productive activities. Similarly, the thesis finds that Kenyas declining performance during the 1980s and 1990s, explained in the literature by worsening external conditions and the capture of increasingly outdated colonial era institutions, was driven more by the ruling coalitions increasing vulnerability, which incentivised then President Moi to prioritise short term politics of survival over sound economic management, particularly after the transition to multi party politics in the 1990s. This resulted in an extremely closed and increasingly disordered deals space, undermining investor confidence and growth. However, a key finding of the thesis, and one that challenges a general view within the literature that corruption permeated all areas of Kenyas economy during the 1980s and 1990s, is that key sectors like horticulture and garments, which made vital contributions to foreign exchange and vote winning employment, were relatively insulated from these political dynamics, helping to explain why Kenya did not suffer a complete growth collapse. Finally, the thesis finds that improved economic outcomes from the early 2000s did not flow from the enactment of donor demanded reforms, as the literature suggests, but rather from increased order within the deals space. This was driven by a reduction in the ruling coalitions vulnerability as well as the ideological predilections of President Kibaki, Mois successor, whose deeply held ideas drove him to implement his economic vision in the face of countervailing political incentives. Critically, the thesis finds that Kibaki enforced ordered but closed deals in Kenyas financial services industry, giving influential banking and telecommunication firms the regulatory space and certainty that they required to innovate with products like mobile money, kickstarting a financial services revolution that has, amongst other things, significantly improved the availability and costs of credit. However, a key finding is that the closed deals predominant in banking and telecommunications, combined with the open deals found in export focused sectors like horticulture and garments, where firms have utilised their increased holding power to push for further openings in deals, has led to the emergence of a dualistic deals space that, if not tackled through incremental governance reforms, undermines the prospects for Kenya achieving a long term growth acceleration and structurally transforming its economy. These findings inform the thesis policy recommendations, which include a focus on how pockets of effectiveness can play a critical role in promoting growth in otherwise unfavourable governance contexts.