Peacekeeping, which was born as an innovation of the United Nations system in an ad hoc way, has transformed in the post-Cold War. In the post-Cold War era, the number of peacekeeping operations increased, new tasks were introduced and the end goal of the operations has changed. Besides, the prevailing understanding of UN peacekeeping has transformed thereby leading us to use the terms peacebuilding and peace operations rather than mere peacekeeping. While during the Cold War era, peacekeeping meant to supervise the ceasefire after interstate conflicts, in the post-Cold War era, peace operations have been mostly utilised in internal conflicts with a view to bring sustainable peace in the lands of internal conflicts. Furthermore, while during the Cold War era, peacekeeping mainly concerned peace/security and sovereignty upon the conflicts / human security and socio-economic development have been embedded into the agenda of peace operations in the post-Cold War era. This thesis offers two dynamics based on a normative change as the underlying cause behind this transformation. In the post-Cold War era, international norms have changed and brought a new parameter: internal conflicts are to be responded. Based on this normative change, the first dynamic is related with the challenge, which internal conflicts pose for peace operations, and the second dynamic is the rise of liberal internationalism, which tends to organise domestic realms of the states.

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The previous research in the field of new religious movements has mostly focused on the spectacular parts where phenomena such as “brainwashing” and the “charismatic leader” have attracted both media and the scientific studies of religion. Professor Liselotte Frisks has done several enquiries about sects and new religious movements in Sweden. One of her main conclusions is that the relation between these new religious movements and the rest of society has changed; a relation that used to be characterized by conflicts and tension is now becoming more open as both parts are changing. This study does not focus on the spectacular parts. Instead I have studied something more common and general. I have studied how members from new religious movements are apprehending subjects as school and education. I have chosen two well-known religious movements: the church of Scientology and the Family Federation of World Peace and Unification. My comprehensive purpose is to analyze the members' opinions and views, to see whether their ideas are on terms with what the majority says or if it differs from the norm. My conclusion is that the members of the Church of Scientology criticize the Swedish school system. They find it too theoretical and believe that there is not enough focus on aspects such as word-understanding. The Church of Scientology has their own pedagogy which is based on word-understanding. The members of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification shared the opinion of the majority to a larger extent, as they did not prescribe such harsh critics about the school. However, they do believe that the school has to take a huge responsibility raising the students since many young people of today come from broken families. Strong families are one of the corner pillars of this movement.

In this research, Lua Nazerian examines the conceptualization of three different statements given by leaders of the Bahá'í, Catholic, and Tibetan Buddhist faiths on the topic of world peace. Moreover, through a comparative analysis, each conceptualization was examined in light of the different degrees they agree or contradict each other and whether a coherent contribution could be made to a common concept of world peace. The research was conducted in two stages, first, through the thematic analysis method some major principles and overarching themes specific to each statement and relevant to the concept of world peace were identified, followed by a comparative analysis with the support of two operative questions. Furthermore, as there are multiple challenges with studying the abstract and complex concepts of peace and religious voices, the study was conducted through the lens of the statements rather than through religions to avoid this pitfall. It was found that while determining the overall coherence of each perspective, some common philosophical premises and core understandings of human nature and interconnectedness appeared to cohere. Meanwhile, some fundamental differences arose on the level of theological starting points that affected the overarching approach to world peace as such. However, these differences did not contradict a coherent contribution of a common conceptualization of world peace. Although the findings of this research are in the emerging stages of the evolution of further research, the contribution of its undertaking is of value to the field of religion in peace and conflict studies.