Despite worldwide reports of former child recruits engaging in post-conflict criminal activity, no one has sought to systematically analyze whether this turn of events was a consequence of their...Show moreDespite worldwide reports of former child recruits engaging in post-conflict criminal activity, no one has sought to systematically analyze whether this turn of events was a consequence of their child soldiering past. In fact, any attempt to empirically verify this would have to address the lack of theoretical foundations on which to rest. Indeed, theories about adult post-conflict crime cannot help mapping juvenile crime in the same context, as they are bound by age-specific assumptions. This thesis therefore addresses, and contributes to filling, both these empirical and theoretical gaps. I hypothesize that wartime child soldiering increases post-conflict juvenile crime through two complementary mechanisms – the long-term effects of a full socialization into violence and relative economic grievances – and further suggest that both are mediated by gender. Running a negative binomial regression using existing datasets enables me to glean supporting evidence for this hypothesis, as well as preliminary evidence speaking to the socialization mechanism. Yet, overall, the findings remain somewhat inconclusive due to limitations in the data. I thus call for more research – including qualitative work and original data collection – to ground them.Show less
This thesis studies an imposed peace agreement's effect on a state's voter turn-out and its relationship with low voter turn-out. The study focuses on the case of Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH),...Show moreThis thesis studies an imposed peace agreement's effect on a state's voter turn-out and its relationship with low voter turn-out. The study focuses on the case of Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH), which has had a mandated peace agreement since December of 1995: the Dayton Peace Agreement. My key expectation for the research is that BiH citizens do not perceive their vote as a factor that could implement change in the electoral process and eventually incorporate their political changes through politicians and their parties. Furthermore, the consociational aspect of the state, corruption and violence may lower voter turn-out. The analysis has been executed through in-depth interviews with 12 citizens in BiH, deriving from different ethnic backgrounds and equally divided by gender, age, and voters and non-voters. The analysis has strongly brought forward a relationship between corruption and low voter turn-out. The results also show that one of the causes of citizens not heading to the ballot box is that their vote will not imply significant change. This is also because of the consociational nature within the state that uses peacebuilding and power-sharing. The presence of nationalist parties and the DPA's administration also raised issues with respondents through the analysis.Show less
Narratives depicting women in war prominently represent women as vulnerable victims and rarely is female empowerment during war and post-war period brought to the fore. This thesis sheds light on...Show moreNarratives depicting women in war prominently represent women as vulnerable victims and rarely is female empowerment during war and post-war period brought to the fore. This thesis sheds light on how female empowerment is created in wartime and advocated in the post-war period. A common consensus among scholars is that women gain empowerment during times of war. According to scholars, the empowerment gained during war is lost in its aftermath. This thesis discusses female empowerment in Eritrea during the Eritrean War of Independence (1961-1991), and its effects on post-war Eritrean society. To answer the research question “How has female participation in the Eritrean War of Independence influenced the role of women in post-conflict Eritrean society?” this paper examines both quantitative and qualitative data to further the understanding of how concepts of patriarchy, social convention and empowerment paint a picture of Eritrean women’s lived reality. This paper argues that the ideology of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) failed to address women’s needs by erasing the feminine and repressing the domestic. The main struggle recognized in the research is the suppression of progressive self-confident former female fighters by the patriarchal beliefs of their families. While gender equality in the EPLF progressed over the course of the war, civil society was in a “frozen” state of emergency. Hence, when the war ended, civil society proceeded to revert to the traditional gender roles from the pre-war period.Show less
Cultural heritage plays an important part in the rehabilitation process in post-war societies because it forms the physical part of an ethnic groups’ identity. In countries of the former Yugoslavia...Show moreCultural heritage plays an important part in the rehabilitation process in post-war societies because it forms the physical part of an ethnic groups’ identity. In countries of the former Yugoslavia, a shared narrative is used for rehabilitation purposes and implemented through the reconstruction of cultural heritage. Because the various ethnic groups living in countries of the former Yugoslavia have their own divergent memories to the war, reconstruction as a form of rehabilitation is difficult and disputed. In this thesis, I will show that the main difficulty of rehabilitation through the reconstruction of cultural heritage lies in the fact that it is used as a forced shared narrative, which does not enhance co-operation between ethnic groups, but effectively cements the already existing ethnic segregation. The archaeological heritage manager plays a key role in resolving this problem. Through his extensive background knowledge and methodology, the archaeological heritage manager forms a link between the local community, the national government and international community. Thus, while the national governments, through the involvement of the international community, saw the reconstruction of cultural heritage as a trigger for regional stabilization, results show that it is better used for the revitalization of the local community. Through this, rehabilitation will follow. This thesis focuses on the rehabilitation through the reconstruction of cultural heritage in countries of the former Yugoslavia and focuses on the difficulties there. However, through recognizing these difficulties and coming up with opportunities, the results will be implementable in comparable situations and will add to the solution on how rehabilitation in post-war countries can best be achieved.Show less
