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This thesis investigates Albanian organized crime with a focus on the transnational crime of trafficking cannabis cultivated in Albania. It argues that the illicit cannabis market has flourished due to a difficult transition from communism to democracy, and efforts to combat the market, until recently, have been largely an afterthought by government officials. Additionally, organized crime has infiltrated portions of Albanian politics and its economy, which has had significant negative effects on Albania, its citizens, and its candidacy toward European Union (EU) membership., http://archive.org/details/internationaleff1094561277, Outstanding Thesis, Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy, Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

What factors drive governments’ decisions to intervene in local conflicts within their borders? Communal conflict – that is, organized violence between non-state groups that are mobilized along a shared communal identity – kills thousands each year and severely impacts local livelihoods, at times threatening to spread and affect entire regions. Given the state’s assumed monopoly over the legitimate use of force, we should expect the concerned governments to be critical actors of the overall effort to restore peace in cases of local communal conflict, but empirical evidence indicates that central states tend to only intervene in some cases but not in others. This phenomenon has so far been understudied and the variations in states’ efforts to manage these conflicts remain unexplained. This article presents the first quantitative study of state intervention in communal conflicts. Building on existing scholarly work, I argue that state intervention is explained by a combination of strategic interests and state capacity, and that interests related to ethnic constituencies and land control play an important part in explaining governments’ strategies. These propositions find support in a statistical analysis covering sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2010.

What factors drive governments’ decisions to intervene in local conflicts within their borders? Communal conflict – that is, organized violence between non-state groups that are mobilized along a shared communal identity – kills thousands each year and severely impacts local livelihoods, at times threatening to spread and affect entire regions. Given the state’s assumed monopoly over the legitimate use of force, we should expect the concerned governments to be critical actors of the overall effort to restore peace in cases of local communal conflict, but empirical evidence indicates that central states tend to only intervene in some cases but not in others. This phenomenon has so far been understudied and the variations in states’ efforts to manage these conflicts remain unexplained. This article presents the first quantitative study of state intervention in communal conflicts. Building on existing scholarly work, I argue that state intervention is explained by a combination of strategic interests and state capacity, and that interests related to ethnic constituencies and land control play an important part in explaining governments’ strategies. These propositions find support in a statistical analysis covering sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2010.

What factors drive governments’ decisions to intervene in local conflicts within their borders? Communal conflict – that is, organized violence between non-state groups that are mobilized along a shared communal identity – kills thousands each year and severely impacts local livelihoods, at times threatening to spread and affect entire regions. Given the state’s assumed monopoly over the legitimate use of force, we should expect the concerned governments to be critical actors of the overall effort to restore peace in cases of local communal conflict, but empirical evidence indicates that central states tend to only intervene in some cases but not in others. This phenomenon has so far been understudied and the variations in states’ efforts to manage these conflicts remain unexplained. This article presents the first quantitative study of state intervention in communal conflicts. Building on existing scholarly work, I argue that state intervention is explained by a combination of strategic interests and state capacity, and that interests related to ethnic constituencies and land control play an important part in explaining governments’ strategies. These propositions find support in a statistical analysis covering sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2010.

What factors drive governments’ decisions to intervene in local conflicts within their borders? Communal conflict – that is, organized violence between non-state groups that are mobilized along a shared communal identity – kills thousands each year and severely impacts local livelihoods, at times threatening to spread and affect entire regions. Given the state’s assumed monopoly over the legitimate use of force, we should expect the concerned governments to be critical actors of the overall effort to restore peace in cases of local communal conflict, but empirical evidence indicates that central states tend to only intervene in some cases but not in others. This phenomenon has so far been understudied and the variations in states’ efforts to manage these conflicts remain unexplained. This article presents the first quantitative study of state intervention in communal conflicts. Building on existing scholarly work, I argue that state intervention is explained by a combination of strategic interests and state capacity, and that interests related to ethnic constituencies and land control play an important part in explaining governments’ strategies. These propositions find support in a statistical analysis covering sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2010.

Keana Local Government Council (LGC) in the Southern Senatorial District of Nasarawa state, Nigeria, experienced a devastating inter-ethnic conflict between 2001-2002, and has since then enjoyed uninterrupted durable peace. Motivated therefore by the desire to know more about the conflict, how this durable peace was achieved and most importantly the transformative roles, strategies and tactics adopted by the religious and traditional leaders in Keana LGC in addressing the conflict and attaining this feat, this study relied on (1) conflict transformation and other theories to elaborate some key concepts, (2) and used simple qualitative methodology to collect data from the religious and traditional leaders, and to analyse it for the primary purpose of highlighting their significant responsorial contributions Mutual mistrust, political marginalization, unattended land skirmishes and brutal murder emerged as the primary causes of the conflict. With their status and roles as motivators, mobilizers and peace diplomats, and aided tactically by personal courage, fearlessness and love for the people, the religious and traditional leaders were able to strategically address the conflict with sustainable dialogue, interactive problem-solving meetings, religious rituals, traditional mores, peace education and youth mobilization. Based on these transformative contributions, this study makes these positional statements: (1) the Keana communities hold these leaders with tenacity as auspicious elements of their histories and social welfare, (2) these leaders are local non-state peace actors and epistemic communities which ideologists, state-crafters, peace researchers and practitioners ought to work with as co-actors in peace processes and social development.

What factors drive governments’ decisions to intervene in local conflicts within their borders? Communal conflict – that is, organized violence between non-state groups that are mobilized along a shared communal identity – kills thousands each year and severely impacts local livelihoods, at times threatening to spread and affect entire regions. Given the state’s assumed monopoly over the legitimate use of force, we should expect the concerned governments to be critical actors of the overall effort to restore peace in cases of local communal conflict, but empirical evidence indicates that central states tend to only intervene in some cases but not in others. This phenomenon has so far been understudied and the variations in states’ efforts to manage these conflicts remain unexplained. This article presents the first quantitative study of state intervention in communal conflicts. Building on existing scholarly work, I argue that state intervention is explained by a combination of strategic interests and state capacity, and that interests related to ethnic constituencies and land control play an important part in explaining governments’ strategies. These propositions find support in a statistical analysis covering sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2010.

Keana Local Government Council (LGC) in the Southern Senatorial District of Nasarawa state, Nigeria, experienced a devastating inter-ethnic conflict between 2001-2002, and has since then enjoyed uninterrupted durable peace. Motivated therefore by the desire to know more about the conflict, how this durable peace was achieved and most importantly the transformative roles, strategies and tactics adopted by the religious and traditional leaders in Keana LGC in addressing the conflict and attaining this feat, this study relied on (1) conflict transformation and other theories to elaborate some key concepts, (2) and used simple qualitative methodology to collect data from the religious and traditional leaders, and to analyse it for the primary purpose of highlighting their significant responsorial contributions Mutual mistrust, political marginalization, unattended land skirmishes and brutal murder emerged as the primary causes of the conflict. With their status and roles as motivators, mobilizers and peace diplomats, and aided tactically by personal courage, fearlessness and love for the people, the religious and traditional leaders were able to strategically address the conflict with sustainable dialogue, interactive problem-solving meetings, religious rituals, traditional mores, peace education and youth mobilization. Based on these transformative contributions, this study makes these positional statements: (1) the Keana communities hold these leaders with tenacity as auspicious elements of their histories and social welfare, (2) these leaders are local non-state peace actors and epistemic communities which ideologists, state-crafters, peace researchers and practitioners ought to work with as co-actors in peace processes and social development.

This graduate course is in three Parts. Together they are intended to provide theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives on source and consequences of globalization, focusing on emergent structures and processes, and on the implications of flows of goods and services across national boundaries - with special attention to the issue of migration, on the assumption that people matter and matter a lot. An important concern addressed pertains to the dilemmas of international policies that are shaped by the macro-level consequences of micro-level behavior.

This graduate course is in three Parts. Together they are intended to provide theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives on source and consequences of globalization, focusing on emergent structures and processes, and on the implications of flows of goods and services across national boundaries - with special attention to the issue of migration, on the assumption that people matter and matter a lot. An important concern addressed pertains to the dilemmas of international policies that are shaped by the macro-level consequences of micro-level behavior.

This graduate course is in three Parts. Together they are intended to provide theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives on source and consequences of globalization, focusing on emergent structures and processes, and on the implications of flows of goods and services across national boundaries - with special attention to the issue of migration, on the assumption that people matter and matter a lot. An important concern addressed pertains to the dilemmas of international policies that are shaped by the macro-level consequences of micro-level behavior.

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With an ongoing pivot toward great power competition, there may be a temptation to reduce counter-proliferation efforts against violent non-state actors (VNSA) to a peripheral mission for U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). However, the current and emerging threats of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) acquisition and use by VNSA are increasing through the ubiquity of various technologies, materials, and internet access. This research analyzes the use of chemical weapons (CW) by VNSA and the unique challenges of detecting and combating CW at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. This research first implements regression models using chemical incident data from 1995–2017 to identify which strategic and operational environments are associated with VNSA CW adoption, and uses the outcomes to create a template for predictive intelligence methods for chemical threats. Next, the researchers conduct social network analysis to investigate commonalities among VNSA with chemical programs, and to determine if these CW tactics are geographically migrating. Then, lessons learned from the case study involving al-Qaeda in Iraq yield a proposed disruption model tested in a plausible, near-future scenario. Finally, policy recommendations are provided for USSOCOM and other relevant entities to improve counter-WMD efforts as they relate to the prediction and disruption of the chemical programs of VNSA., http://archive.org/details/achemicalromance1094564173, Lieutenant, United States Navy, Lieutenant, United States Navy, Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Several developing nations are grappling with the phenomenon of ungoverned territories, which are believed to be harboring insurgent, terrorist, and other armed violent groups. This study investigates how a developing nation can use its resources to reduce violent activities and, consequently, ungoverned spaces from within its sovereign territory. The study uses geo-referenced violent events data as a measure of violence and spatiotemporal data for law enforcement agencies (LEAs), social services, and economic infrastructure as measures of state authority. All data is specific to Uganda. Using multi-regression models (negative binomial and matched wake analysis), the study employs interpolated spatiotemporal data to estimate the effects of state authority factors on violent events over space and time. The findings show that LEAs, including police, prisons, courts, and border protection, are the most effective in reducing violence and therefore ungoverned territories. Save for schools and local governments, social services like health centers, and economic infrastructure like roads, tend to be associated with increased levels of violence. The policy implication for developing nations is therefore to consider directing their resources toward building their LEAs before or concurrently with socioeconomic services in order to reduce violence emanating from ungoverned spaces., http://archive.org/details/ungovernedspaces1094545911, Major, Uganda People’s Defense Forces, Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.