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Challenges of Child DDR: A Case Study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Gajdošová, Marie Anna ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Svobodová, Karolina (referee)
This Master's thesis is devoted to the study of Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration programs for children formerly associated with armed groups. Its main task is to critically assess the implementation of child Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration programs, to identify the main challenges of these programs, and to provide recommendations for their future improvement. The theoretical part of the work focuses on the concept of child soldiers and the concept of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. The work examines the case study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo closely. It explores the history of the conflict, the history of using child soldiers, and the history of Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration programs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Furthermore, this work analyzes the phenomenon of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the challenges the current Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration programs are facing and provides recommendations for the Congolese government and for the international actors which are providing the Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration programs for children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The work concludes that through the implementation of new policies on the national...
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Motivating Factors for Radicalization in Balkan Muslim-Majority Countries
Vlk, Jonáš ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Kuľková, Miroslava (referee)
The topic of religious radicalization in the Balkans is gaining attention among academia in recent years. However, motivational factors of radicalization in the region still remain rather under-researched. Furthermore, comprehensive research focusing particularly on the motivational factors of Islamist radicalization in the Muslim-majority countries of the Balkans - countries with a specific context and background unique in the wider Europe - hasn't been yet carried out. This paper thus elaborates on the motivational factors of radicalization in the Muslim-majority countries of the Balkans, which is Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo, by applying generally-known factors of radicalization to this specific theatre. Predominantly secondary sources as well as documents issued by the OSCE which maintains field presence in all of the abovementioned countries are utilized in order to provide a thorough overview of motivational factors of radicalization in each of the selected countries. These are discussed respectively in corresponding chapters. Individual chapters are in dialogue with each other following the same methodology and structure, focusing on similar issues. A comprehensive overview of the motivational factors of radicalization in Balkan Muslim-majority countries is thus presented. Applying the...
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Chinese Counterinsurgency Strategy in Xinjiang from 2008 to 2018
Englund, Adam ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Karmazin, Aleš (referee)
This master thesis deals with the Chinese counterinsurgency strategy in Xinjiang with particular attention paid to current situation and latest development. The studied phenomenon is explored using the "Three Pillars" framework authored by the counterinsurgency theorist David Kilcullen. The study concisely presents the concept of insurgency and counterinsurgency with special prominence given to counterinsurgency led by autocratic regimes. The thesis also presents the reader with a comprehensive of Xinjiang's geographic conditions as well as its historical and demographic development. By using the abovementioned framework, the thesis identifies basic characteristics of Chinese counterinsurgency strategy.
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The Implications of the Collapse of the Caliphate for Southeast Asia
Clancy, Jean-Patrick Christian James ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Ludvík, Zdeněk (referee)
Following the announcement of the establishment of a Caliphate in 2014, individuals and groups from all corners of the world pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State. Of particular interest to this study are violent terrorist groups based in Southeast Asia. The thesis focuses on this region as, despite obvious geographical constraints, local bay'ah pledges have allowed ISIS to suddenly emerge in the region with a large and well organised force allowing for an increase in terrorist activities and ultimately the capture of Marawi, the largest city to fall under the ISIS banner outside of Syria and Iraq. But a question remains too often unanswered - why do terrorist groups ally? While the dynamic is rare and paradoxical due to groups' illicit and clandestine nature, strategic alliances between terrorist groups are far from being a new phenomenon. While a handful of scholars dared to explore this complex field, it remains under-theorised to this day. This thesis uses an available list of studies and analyses on terrorist alliances and complements it with theories related to alliances between states in order to understand the rationale behind Southeast Asian Islamists alliance with ISIS. While there lacks a consensus as to why groups ally, the study finds it to be a multi-dimensional and mutually...
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Radicalization in Prison: Approaching the Issue
Dotlačil, Filip ; Ditrych, Ondřej (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
In recent years Europe experienced several terrorist attacks on its soil. Some of these were committed by Jihadists radicalised in prisons. An issue already identified by scholars has thus become publicly known and attracted attention of policy makers. The combination of Islamic propaganda with jails imprisoning substantial amount of vulnerable inmates and incarceration of returning foreign fighters create a mixture threatening to produce more violent extremists. The aim of this thesis is to describe how Germany approaches the issue and connect its solution with existing radicalisation models and prison regime concepts. Because of the federal structure of Germany, this description is based on analysis of three levels: institutional analysis of the German framework (macro); comparison of state projects tackling the issue (meso); and a case study of practitioners of one federal state (micro). The thesis comes to a conclusion, that the German strategy is strongly decentralised, still not in its final form, applies the concept of dynamic security as its prison regime and approaches the issue from a holistic perspective, involving also non-state actors and other areas of radicalisation.
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From revolutionary armed forces to revolutionary regimes, empirical analysis of the transformation
Cuby, Alexandre ; Kučera, Tomáš (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the role that political ideologies plays in determining the target of insurgency movements. In order to understand how these groups operate, I use Janowitz's military establishment to apply it on the three main revolutionary ideologies of the 20th century, Khomeinism, Marxism/Leninism and Fanonian. Based on these analyses, I hypothesize the three main targets by ideology based on the clarity of the indoctrination and on the level of bureaucracy entailed in the revolutionary texts. I then proceed to compare these theories to three case studies, the Hezbollah, the FARC and finally the PKK. I try to offer an explanation on why religious insurgencies target most of their attacks towards rival factions or why nationalist left-wing groups are mostly focused on attacking security forces. I argue that a well-structured hierarchy, a reliance on the civil society and a clear definition of the political and military targets are quintessential to prevent civilian causalities. But contrarily to most papers on the topic, I find that a strict military discipline has the reversed result that expected. For instance, the FARC and the PKK have such a strict internal code of discipline that it led the members to desert the organizations by thousands and have civilians as...
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Greek Civil War: Greek Immigrants from Anatolia and Their Involvement in the Communist Insurgency (1946-1949)
Chábová, Tereza ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Soukup, Jaromír (referee)
This Master's thesis deals with the individual's motivations for participation in the Communist insurgency during the Greek Civil War of 1946-1949. More specifically, the thesis aims to analyse the motivations of those who joined the Communist guerrillas and at the same time originated from the population which came as Greek Christian refugees in 1920s to Macedonia, Northern Greece. The Master's thesis introduces several theoretical concepts which try to explain individual's motivations for mobilization in insurgency generally, including the "grievance versus greed" theory, the social networks and collective identity approach as well as coercion approach. The theories are then applied to the empirical case of Greek-speaking Pontic refugees from Anatolia and their participation in the Greek Civil War. The thesis introduces the background and experiences of the researched ethnic group throughout the interwar period up until the Greek Civil War. The analysis of the particular incentives which were behind the Greek refugee's participation is supported by the qualitative research in the form of interviews with 21 witnesses, who fall into the researched group of families who originate from the Pontos region in Anatolia and have family experience of mobilization in Communist Insurgency of 1946 to 1949. The thesis...
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Storytelling and Reconciliation: Shifts in Frames and Discursive Narratives in Listeners of the Initiative "My Story" in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Oberpfalzerová, Hana ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Stojarová, Věra (referee) ; Kubátová, Hana (referee)
Storytelling and Reconciliation: Shifts in Frames and Discursive Narratives in Listeners of the Initiative "My Story" in Bosnia and Herzegovina Hana Oberpfalzerová Abstract In Bosnia and Herzegovina, two non-governmental organizations have been running the initiative "My Story" within which three war victims, one Bosniak, one Serb and one Croat, tell their wartime stories and their way to reconciliation in public testimonies in a side-by-side, live setting to an audience of young people or ordinary citizens. The aim of the initiative is to promote reconciliation in the listeners. This doctoral dissertation integrates several disparate fields in order to create an analytical framework for inferring attitude shifts from the discursive narratives recalled by the listeners, and from the frames that connect the single narratives to broader societal discourses within these discursive narratives. Three public testimonies were analyzed and interviews with eighteen listeners from the three Bosnian nations were conducted, some of which were interviewed by phone about four months later to check for further attitude changes. The interview material was analyzed inductively by the means of thematic discourse analysis in order to identify the underlying discursive narratives that were then regrouped into dimensions or...
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Mapping the Nexus: Assessing the Relationship between Modern European Jihad and the Crime-terror nexus
Sherlock, Kate ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Butler, Eamonn (referee)
The recent proliferation of jihadist incidents of terrorism in recent years has heightened interest in the modus operandi of terrorist operations. Available literature suggests a strong link between criminality and terrorism and the emergence of a crime-terror nexus. Current research on the nexus is based on dated examples and very rarely incorporates theory or an analytical lens. The purpose of this thesis is to explore modern manifestations of the crime-terror nexus from a social perspective in response to emerging data. The research reviews recent open-source data and literature at the institutional level, organisational level and the individual/social level. Analysis was approached from selected social and criminological angles including rational choice theory and a social psychological standpoint. Conclusions pointed to the increasing importance of social factors in areas such as radicalisation and group interactions to the processes of terrorism. Rather than attempting to explain causality, the study simply encourages the use of alternative perspectives when addressing the threat of terrorism. The thesis encourages academics and policy-makers to address the crime-terror nexus as a social problem that is fast becoming a national security threat. The research also highlights the importance of...
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