Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution
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This collection contains ETD documents from the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution
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Browsing Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution by Author "Allen, Susan"
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Item Choosing Peace: Local Peacebuilder Perspectives on Agency, Relational Responsibility, and the Future of International Peacebuilding(2016) Moix, Bridget M.; Moix, Bridget M.; Allen, SusanEven in the midst of the most horrific violent conflicts, there are always people building peace. What motivates such individuals to act for peace when many others do not, and how do they understand their own motivations? What do they feel sustains and supports them against the risks they face? How do they think the international community can better support them and others like them to make the courageous choice for peace?Item Evolving Designs: Transformative Strategies and Inclusive Conflict Resolution Practices in Nagorno-Karabakh and Syria(2017) Gamaghelyan, Philip; Gamaghelyan, Philip; Allen, SusanThe field of conflict resolution holds the promise of freeing approaches and policies concerning politics of identity from the fatalistic grip of realism. While the conceptual literature on conflicts has moved in this alternative direction, conflict resolution practice continues to rely on realist frames and acts as an unwanted auxiliary to official processes. Perpetuation of conflict discourses, marginalization, and exclusion of affected populations are widespread, caused by the over-reliance of conflict resolution practice on the binary frames of classic international relations paradigms and also by the competitive and hierarchical relationships within the field itself.Item Exploring Youth Approaches to Collaboration across Social Differences in Tunisia’s Civic CommunitiesKincaid, Sarah; Kincaid, Sarah; Allen, SusanThis thesis explores youth approaches to collaboration across social differences in Tunisia’s civic communities. After Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, social, political, and religious differences came to the fore of the new civic sphere. At the same time, the civic sphere was given new legal freedoms, creating an explosion of civic associations, formal and informal. This study explores if and how youth are collaborating across new publically expressed social differences. This qualitative research project drew on interviews conducted with youth, under the age of 35, during summer of 2015.Item In Search of Greater Monsters to Slay: Exploring the Motivations of Chechen Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq Fighting for the Islamic StateMartin, Sarah; Martin, Sarah; Allen, SusanThis thesis considers the wave of insurgents who left Chechnya in order to fight with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The purpose of this study is to examine the motivations of these fighters. Stories describing their departure—including journalistic retellings, third-party recollections and self-stated motivation—collected on the blog, Chechens in Syria, compiled by Joanna Paraszczuk, is the data used for this thesis. These motivations are coded and analyzed for patterns and themes. What is extracted from these blog posts is useful for understanding the conflict in Chechnya and speaks more broadly to the state of jihadism within the region. Additionally, secondary sources and a deep literature review of foreign fighters, the ideology of the Islamic State, the conflict between Russia and Chechnya, provide further insights and complement the analysis provided.Item Peacebuilding Evaluation by Civil Society Organizations in Mindanao: Towards Robust Evaluation of Peacebuilding Programs(2022) Torres, Wilfredo Magno; Allen, SusanPeacebuilding and conflict resolution is an exciting field of study and engagement. But trying to find out if peacebuilding efforts are really making a difference is often a tedious and painful process for many project managers and practitioners. This is especially true for peace and conflict resolution projects that operate in real-world conflict and fragile settings as these often pose serious and unique challenges to existing evaluation methodologies. This dissertation investigates the experiences of civil society organizations (CSOs) in evaluating their peacebuilding efforts by exploring their understanding of key evaluation issues and how these relate to peacebuilding and evaluation theory and practice. The central question that frames this study is: How do CSOs working in conflict and fragile settings in Mindanao want to improve evaluation to support peacebuilding efforts in that region? This qualitative study elicits the tacit knowledge of CSOs and their subjective understandings on how they think their peace projects are making a difference in addressing conflicts in their respective contexts, based on how they conduct evaluations. The study gathers data on at least three spheres of CSO endeavor: peacebuilding efforts, evaluation practices, and CSO understanding of key evaluation issues, dimensions, or concepts such as: causation, impact, attribution/ contribution, effectiveness/ success, issue of transfer, complexity, sustainability/ adaptability to change; and the effects on drivers of conflict. Data gathered on these key evaluation issues are used as a set of lenses for guiding the process of inquiry in scrutinizing evaluation approaches and challenges, and the possible improvements to make evaluation more supportive of peacebuilding efforts. The knowledge shared by CSOs based on their own experiences of peacebuilding and doing evaluations, compared with the current state of peacebuilding and evaluation theory, generates new insights that can provide some clarification on the commonly contentious issues in the evaluation of peacebuilding efforts, thereby enriching the peacebuilding and evaluation fields as a whole.