Leaving one’s home is never an easy undertaking. Whether having left voluntarily or not, migrants face various challenges in their new host states. Many rely on their co-nationals and diaspora...Show moreLeaving one’s home is never an easy undertaking. Whether having left voluntarily or not, migrants face various challenges in their new host states. Many rely on their co-nationals and diaspora communities to remain connected to their homeland and to navigate their new host countries. One way to remain connected to the home country are joking relationships. Prevalent in West African states, joking relationships or cousinage assume make-believe family ties, which in turn allow people to jokingly insult their “cousins”. Commonly known as traditional conflict resolution techniques, these relationships play important roles in people’s everyday life. This thesis investigates the impact that cousinage has on the community of the Senegalese diaspora in Germany, as well as the question whether diaspora activity and involvement can facilitate integration. In the course of this thesis, an in-depth case study of the Senegalese diaspora in Germany was conducted, for which 28 members of the diaspora were interviewed. The research found that joking relationships are a way for the diaspora to create community feeling based on ethnic and national identities. Furthermore, the thesis shows that diaspora involvement facilitates the integration process of migrants by offering active support.Show less
State violence against civilians is rarely considered in the context of the Sahel-crisis, although militaries and other state actors are responsible for a major share of civilian casualties in the...Show moreState violence against civilians is rarely considered in the context of the Sahel-crisis, although militaries and other state actors are responsible for a major share of civilian casualties in the region. As many international actors support Sahelian states in mitigating the crisis, this study seeks to shed light on state violence in the Sahel from different perspectives. I use theories and concepts of recent studies on militia-state cooperation and societal explanations of violence and modify them to develop my theoretical framework of “cooperation, rivalry, and revenge”. Based on that framework, I argue that three factors determine state violence in Burkina Faso and Niger: firstly, cooperation of the state with militias encourages the latter to carry out local conflicts violently, secondly, state actors target more civilians the higher the rivalry measured in parity of represented and marginalised ethnic groups, and thirdly revenge motives account for the location of state violence. I test these arguments using a mixed-methods design that combines extensive qualitative information from expert reports with data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Proejct (ACLED) for Burkina Faso and Niger from 2015 to 2021.Show less
As the effects of climate change are increasingly appearing around the globe, the general public’s concern about the issue has also grown. As the need for action is becoming more important than...Show moreAs the effects of climate change are increasingly appearing around the globe, the general public’s concern about the issue has also grown. As the need for action is becoming more important than ever, we need to understand what factors can help increase implementation and reduce infringements of environmental policies. There is particular lack of research on the potential relationship between public concern about climate change and the infringements of European Union environmental rules in Europe. As respect of common rules is key to maintain the stability of the European Union, infringements represent a certain risk of conflict. Therefore, this research also helps fill the literature gap in the conflict and climate nexus about climate conflict in Europe. For these purposes, this research paper explores how public concern for climate change might impact the number of infringements member states commit regarding environmental policies of the European Union. Through a OLS regression analysis, the research finds that public concern does not seem to have a significant impact on the number of infringements member states commit. This apparent absence of influence of public opinion raises serious concerns as to the people’s power to make their governments listen to them and their calls for environmental protection.Show less
In analyzing the relationship between religious diversity and democratic support in Sub-Saharan Africa, existing research has very much focused upon cross-national analyses. This thesis aims to...Show moreIn analyzing the relationship between religious diversity and democratic support in Sub-Saharan Africa, existing research has very much focused upon cross-national analyses. This thesis aims to challenge this by conducting a research on religious diversity and democratic support in Ghana on sub-national level. It analyses the following question: To what extent does religious diversity influence democratic support among religious people in Ghana? This thesis builds upon Robert Dowd’s (2015) theory, which suggests that religious diversity is a stimulus for accepting democracy among Muslims and Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa. I use the clustered version of Afrobarometer Round 5 Ghana in order to assess the relationship between religious diversity on micro-level and democratic support in Ghana. By conducting a multilevel logistic regression analysis, this paper finds that there is no significant relationship between religious diversity and democracy when analyzing for the religious groups Christianity, Islam, Pentecostalism and ‘Other’. Also, religious diversity does not significantly impact interreligious tolerance and political activism. When testing diversity for only Islam and Christianity, there is a significant relationship between religious diversity and democratic support in Ghana.Show less
