This thesis aims to answer the question how the current state of political culture in Tajikistan came to be, with specific focus on how the secularization legacy of the Soviet Union and two large...Show moreThis thesis aims to answer the question how the current state of political culture in Tajikistan came to be, with specific focus on how the secularization legacy of the Soviet Union and two large-scale conflicts influenced the position of political Islam.Show less
National parks in the global South are increasingly marked by a trend of militarised conservation, whereby park rangers receive military training and firearms for anti-poaching operations....Show moreNational parks in the global South are increasingly marked by a trend of militarised conservation, whereby park rangers receive military training and firearms for anti-poaching operations. Especially in conflict situations where violence poses a security threat to conservation efforts, these policies are justified as an effective solution. This can be attributed to the Western discourse that fuels the politics of conservation and is based on a strict dichotomy between nature and society. Within this discourse, poachers and charcoal producers are characterised as villains and the context and motivations behind their actions is ignored. To exemplify the negative repercussions of this process, this thesis analyses militarised conservation in Virunga National Park in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and argues that this form of nature protection infringes on livelihood strategies of the local people in North Kivu. Militarisation in Virunga is intended to demobilise militias who exploit the park’s natural resources, but has a much stronger impact on the local population, who depend on Virunga’s forests for their livelihoods. These people therefore increasingly collaborate with rebel groups, blurring the lines between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ that the Western conservation discourse is built on. This collaboration leads to further resource exploitation and an escalation of violence. Therefore, this thesis claims that, due to the complexity of the situation in Virunga, militarised conservation is counterproductive and leads to a vicious circle of violence.Show less
The political situation in Syria has captured the interest of many scholars since its independence in 1946, and especially with the rise of the socialist Ba’ath party, and its patron Hafez Assad,...Show moreThe political situation in Syria has captured the interest of many scholars since its independence in 1946, and especially with the rise of the socialist Ba’ath party, and its patron Hafez Assad, to power. Assad’s authoritarian rule paved the way for Ba’ath party members and his immediate family members to accumulate wealth and power. This patrimonial approach has contributed to reshaping the class system and creating different types of the bourgeoisie. When Bashar Assad succeeded his father in the year 2000, the political-economic strategy in Syria changed a little by depriving the Ba’ath party members of their privileges and giving them to other prominent government officials and members of the country’s upper and upper-middle classes through neopatrimonial approaches. The new ‘state bourgeoisie’ in Syria did not only include Alawites who are directly related to Assad, but the new order also included Sunnis and Christians who were given a chance to get wealthy by proving their loyalty to Assad and cooperating with the regime. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Syrian businesspeople have either continued supporting the regime or decided to remain silent and leave the country. Although the popular narrative of the Syrian conflict is largely sectarian in nature, sectarianism is not the only significant factor. Class has played a big role in the public’s dismay and contributed to the outbreak of the uprising. The business elite’s reaction to the conflict has contributed to the longevity of the conflict one hand and that of the Assad regime on the other. The loyal elites have benefited largely from this ongoing conflict whereas others who remained neutral risked the confiscation of their properties, and that of their family, and various terrorist charges. This thesis tackles the Syrian conflict from a different angle and highlights the role of the Syrian businesspeople.Show less
The Mekong River is an important water source for the Southeast Asian states, shared among six riparian states. To meet the growing energy needs, Lao is constructing hydropower dams on the Mekong...Show moreThe Mekong River is an important water source for the Southeast Asian states, shared among six riparian states. To meet the growing energy needs, Lao is constructing hydropower dams on the Mekong mainstream which will have negative transboundary impacts. In this thesis, I focus on the absence of escalated inter-state conflict in the Mekong River Basin despite the disputed construction of hydropower dams on the Mekong mainstream. The question that I aim to answer is whether the Mekong River Commission (MRC) is accountable for the absence of escalated inter-state conflict despite the controversial construction of hydropower dams on the mainstream. I found that for the MRC to be accountable for the absence of escalated inter-state conflict, it should have applied issue linkage to settle the dispute, it should have settled the disputes through a dispute-settlement mechanism and it should have monitored the development of the river. I found that the MRC is not accountable for the absence of escalated inter-state conflict and maintenance of cooperation, because its dispute-settlement mechanism failed to settle the Xayaburi dispute and the MRC was not directly accountable for the issue linkages created. I conclude that another driving force must have been accountable for the absence of inter-state conflict.Show less
This cross-disciplinary thesis investigated the use of metaphors in modern and contemporary Lebanese literature which portrays Beirut as a woman, and violence or turmoil within the city as sexual...Show moreThis cross-disciplinary thesis investigated the use of metaphors in modern and contemporary Lebanese literature which portrays Beirut as a woman, and violence or turmoil within the city as sexual assaults. Both of these metaphors were identified in texts by Zena el Khalil, Elias Khoury and Etal Adnan, along with shorts from Beirut Noir. Lakoff’s theory of metaphor was used to underline the significant interactions between figurative language, knowledge and real action which motivated the research. The mother-virgin-whore triad was found overly simplistic to describe Beirut’s figuration, although interestingly non-normative characterisations such as corrupted mother and once-virgin arise in the literature. However, Beirut has been consistently imagined as a ‘whore’ throughout history. This stereotyping has a particularly complex impact on the allocation of blame and pity in the related literary imagery of Beirut’s ‘rape’, which was further dissected through feminist and critical theory. Overall, an interrelation between machoistic violence and the destruction city was identified, exemplified in Civil War literature but arising in broader contexts. This thesis' intersectional question merited a broad, multi-stranded answer, concluding that imaginaries of women and cities alike must be nuanced and multiple in order to escape harmful stereotyping which can ‘justify’ destructive action.Show less
The DRC has been a conflict-ridden country since pre-colonial times, it is paradoxical that a country so rich in natural resources remains so poor and underdeveloped. This thesis attempts to...Show moreThe DRC has been a conflict-ridden country since pre-colonial times, it is paradoxical that a country so rich in natural resources remains so poor and underdeveloped. This thesis attempts to discover whether the modern, industrialised countries play any role in the perpetuation of the conflict situation in the DRC regarding the exploitation of 'Coltan' which is a widely used mineral for the manufacturing of smartphones and other electronic devices. The historical legacies of the DRC will be explored, an analysis of the conflict situation in the eastern provinces of the DRC will be provided and the commodity chain of coltan will be discussed.Show less
