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Gender equality, women's participation in the post-conflict society, and civil war recurrence
Drevená, Katarína ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Kotvalová, Anna (referee)
A large amount of academic literature demonstrated that intrastate conflicts often occur in countries that have already experienced civil war. This reoccurring pattern forced several researchers to analyze which factors contribute and which lower the risk of war recurrence. This master thesis focuses on the civil war recurrence through the lenses of gender. I will argue that higher gender equality could lower the risk that intrastate conflict will reoccur. If the countries are organized by norms of gender inequality, the same treatment is reproduced towards the other groups within society. On the other hand, more gender-equal societies may transform these relationships into the same tolerant relationships with those who are perceived as different and foreign in the country. Moreover, socialization and the way children have been raised play an important role in how they will behave as adults. Less patriarchal societies with a lower focus on the norm of dominance create space for norms of tolerance, respect, peace, freedom, and equality which has a pacifying effect on the behavior of the state and people within it. Therefore, I will hypothesize that the higher women's political, economic, and social participation, the longer the duration of peace after the civil war. Large-N quantitative analysis in...
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Countering Religious Extremism and Online Radicalization in Uzbekistan
Khakimov, Farrukh ; Anceschi, Luca (advisor) ; Fitzgerald, James (referee) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
From the early days of its independence the Republic of Uzbekistan considered religious extremism and terrorism as the most serious threat to national and regional security. During the 1990s internationally designated terrorist organizations: "The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan" (IMU), "The Islamic Jihad Union" (IJU)1 , Central Asian branch of "Hizbut-Tahrir al Islamiya" (HT) and other radical groups emerged in Uzbekistan as opponents to secular political system of the newly independent state - Republic of Uzbekistan. Due to strict counterterrorism policy of Uzbekistan the level of the threat in the country steadily declined, however, religious extremism and radicalism have not disappeared as major radical organizations moved to neighbouring Afghanistan and Tajikistan; some of which still conduct covert activities within the country and abroad. In addition, the recent emergence of different radical militant groups in Afghanistan such as Katibat al-Imam al-Bukhari (KIB) and Katibat Tavhid wal Jihod (KTJ), which have returned to the region from Syrian civil war, caused concerns for Central Asian countries, especially for Uzbekistan as these radical militant groups are fighting in the north of the Afghanistan, not far from Uzbekistan's border (Cornell & Zenn, 2018). Moreover, with the development of...
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Contemporary conceptualisations of anti-drug efforts in Central Asia
Supueva, Zarina ; Berg, Julie (advisor) ; Connolly, Catherine (referee) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Since the end of the Cold War, the security agenda has shifted from a strictly state-centric focus to one focusing on protecting individuals and the international community. The nature of the new security threats has challenged national security, thus encouraging joint regional and international cooperation. One of the significant risks posed to security is the rapid proliferation of organised crime, which entails a variety of different activities that pose a danger humankind. With illicit trafficking being a substantial financial resource for organised crime groups, along with the significant societal and health risks of illegal drugs, this paper focuses on one of the main trafficking routes from Afghanistan, the world's leading opium producer, to Central Asia. While the number of known trafficking routes is always changing, there are several general routes that are used to smuggle Afghan drugs, the Balkan, Northern, and Southern routes. Since becoming independent in the 1990s, the Central Asian countries are still in the development stages of both establishing their legal systems and exercising effective policies, while at the same time being challenged by chronic economic underdevelopment, high levels of corruption, and transnational threats. Thus, this research will study anti-drug efforts in...
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Counterterrorism strategies as a consequence of terrorism: understanding United Kingdom's CONTEST 2018
Orozbakieva, Aizhan ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Aliyev, Huseyn (referee) ; Biagini, Erika (referee)
The relative peace that the world citizens enjoy today keeps being sabotaged by forces that kill and injure innocent civilians via terrorist attacks. In recent times, a number of violent attacks took place between 2013 and 2017 in all parts of the world. The territories that have been affected the most are the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Western Europe. While terrorism in the MENA region, for instance, was mostly carried out by local forces, in Western Europe it was either external powers or domestic perpetrators who have been indoctrinated by foreign radicals. Western European states started becoming more cautious and alert. As a consequence of terrorism, new counterterrorism strategies have been written and implemented. The following research project seeks to analyse and interpret the United Kingdom's counterterrorism strategy in order to understand the dynamics of the legitimisation of security- oriented policies. The UK has been selected as a case study because it has predominantly struggled with the phenomenon of Northern-Irish related terrorism, long before the infamous September 11th , 2001 attacks in the US. Post-2001, the UK has been mostly targeted by jihadi- inspired terrorism. In response to the growing threat, the country initiated and implemented strategies to reduce...
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Hybrid Warfare' or 'Weaponisation' of Information? Comparative study of the evolution of Russian assertive (dis)information actions
Topuria, Revaz ; Cheskin, Ammon (advisor) ; Murphy, Karl (referee) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Russian assertive actions over the last decade have led some observers to think that Kremlin is employing fundamentally new concepts of armed conflict. Subsequently, scholars came up with a number of buzzwords and ill-defined concepts such as 'hybrid warfare' and 'Gerasimov Doctrine'. This paper believes that novelty of Russian actions is not in terms of its military, but rather the specific nature of operations employed by Kremlin had to do more with the way military was integrated with other instruments, mostly state-run and coordinated information operations. Thus, the project puts a whole new emphasis on information operations and claims that while in certain cases Moscow still uses conventional military, Kremlin's new plan is to achieve goals through information online in the first place, rather than fight the enemy on the battlefield. As paper intends to analyse how Russian information strategy has evolved, it employs quantitative and qualitative content analysis to examine narratives built by RIA Novosti and Russia Today/RT during Russo-Georgian War of 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014. The results show that Russia has learnt its mistakes from Georgian case as in 2014 pro- Kremlin media was more sophisticated and relied on using contested areas of international law to depict Russian...
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The Authoritarian Shortcut: Russia's Unorthodox Population-Centric Counterinsurgency during the Second Chechen War and Strategic Implications for Western Military Planners
Colombo, Roberto ; Aliyev, Huseyn (advisor) ; McDonagh, Ken (referee) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Dissertation title: The Authoritarian Shortcut: Russia's Unorthodox Population-Centric Counterinsurgency during the Second Chechen War and Strategic Implications for Western Military Planners. Author: Roberto Colombo Abstract For authoritarian incumbents, waging counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare is often a wantonly cruel, yet remarkably successful business. While previous research has shown that authoritarian regimes employ a wide array of kinetic and non-kinetic techniques to suppress insurgency, the authoritarian model of COIN warfare remains heavily under-theorised. This study proposes a novel theoretical framework expounding the logic of authoritarian COIN operations and empirically examines its mechanisms by looking at Russia's COIN experience during the Second Chechen War. In investigating the strategic rationale underpinning the authoritarian toolkit of COIN measures, this research aims at establishing whether authoritarian counterinsurgents can effectively deliver mission success. Drawing upon a large pool of secondary sources and primary data collected during face-to-face interviews with eyewitnesses of the Chechen conflict, this study demonstrates that Moscow prevailed against the rebels by resorting to a sophisticated combination of heavy-handed intelligence, information, military, political, and...
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Criminal Intelligence in the Fight Against Organized Crime in Italy
Matiz, Sophie ; Michálek, Luděk (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Criminal intelligence or Law Enforcement intelligence has been conceived to fight crime and restore the order of law whenever a country's national security is at risk. The discipline has its origins in the 1920s, a time in which the main method for intelligence collection was the famous dossier system - the gathering of basic information about individuals. Nowadays, the discipline has come to be considered a key tool in order to contrast organized crime. However, the European discipline on the matter as well as the establishment of the European Model on Criminal Intelligence are to be considered quite recent. In fact, the first real model on criminal intelligence was established only at the beginning of the years 2000s in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the scope of this thesis project is to study the ways in which criminal intelligence operates at the European level. However, this cannot be accomplished without providing an accurate definition of the main concepts - such as organized crime and intelligence - related to the discipline. Moreover, a fundamental part of this thesis regards the study of Europol and its evolution into a proper agency that works to eradicate the phenomenon of organized crime throughout the European territory. In particular, the elaborate aims to underline Europol's...
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Women's peacebuilding civil society organisations and empowerment: A case Study of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Novotná, Zuzana ; Bureš, Oldřich (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Women are underrepresented in politics and rarely included in official peace processes, therefore, they often mobilise in civil society. Moreover, the political empowerment of women continues to be understudied. The thesis looks into how women's peacebuilding civil society organisations engage in the political empowerment of women. To finds answers to the research question, five women's peacebuilding civil society organisations based in Bosnia and Herzegovina were analysed through a conceptual framework of political empowerment. The organisations share the ideas of pacifism and gender equality. The research concludes that they engage in all dimensions of the conceptual framework but most significantly aim at increasing women's agency. The organisations provide women with a safe space to use their voices, share experiences, and create momentum. All the studied organisations fight gender-based violence and provide legal assistance to women. Membership in different networks and initiatives was identified as an important asset. The activities aiming at political empowerment and not directly stating the objective of peacebuilding can be perceived as such due to the positive link between gender equality and sustainable peace.
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Saving President Assad: Russian Impact on the Eruption of the Syrian Civil War
Belkania, Badri ; Rivetti, Paola (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee) ; Anceschi, Luca (referee)
The Arab Spring, a series of massive revolts against the incumbent regimes in the Middle East, heavily touched Syria. Despite of the strong internal and international pressure, the president Bashar al-Assad refused to resign and violently thwarted peaceful protests, pushing the country to the bloody and devastating civil war. Since the start of the demonstrations in Syria, the incumbent government has been benefiting from the robust political, military, financial and diplomatic support from Russia. This thesis provides a thorough recount of the Russian impact, strategic interests, policy and actions prior and during the transformation phase of the protests into the war. The study reaffirms the conclusion of other scholars that Russian negative impact on the eruption of the Syrian Civil War has been substantial, as the Kremlin significantly enhanced the regime's positions outside and inside Syria, making it capable to withstand the pressure. Additionally, in pursuit of the answers on the main research questions of the thesis, namely, finding out why was the Russia's policy in Syria successful, the dissertation offers an exhaustive and coherent explanation of the Moscow's accomplishment in saving the violent regime from fall. Based on the analysis of the accessible material, the thesis concludes that...
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State of the Field: the Concept of Nativism in Far-Right Ideology
Ondet, Juliette ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; McDonagh, Ken (referee) ; Aliyev, Huseyn (referee)
During the past few years, nativist ideology and discourses have been more ad more present in far-right parties. A remarkable amount of literature has been produced to study the phenomenon. However, this produces a cacophony in the research field that this dissertation seeks to address. This work is delineating the borders of the field and analysing the main themes, subthemes and debates about nativism. Through a systematic research analysis, this dissertation demonstrates that the field suffers from its Western and historical centrism and is often confused with populism or nationalism. Overall, racist, economic and symbolic nativism are the three core components of nativist ideology and have different causes and consequences in political and social future of nation- states. This dissertation also questions the appropriateness of the concept in non-Western areas, finding a great potential for the future of the field.
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