3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions

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Browsing 3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions by Department "Department of International Relations"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Femicide a case study of the internalisation of Cedaw in South Africa and Brazil
    (2021) Allee, Laaiqah
    Femicide is defined as the killing of females on account of their gender; it is the most extreme manifestation of violence against women that violates human rights and protections. The international human rights regime has introduced significant laws and norms related to gender equality and protection against gender-based crimes. CEDAW is a comprehensive human rights instrument that guides the international agenda; this framework is supported by the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Sustainable Development Goals and DEVAW. Norm evolution is the process through which these international norms and standards are created, adopted and internalised within national and domestic contexts. This paper provides an evaluation of the norm process with specific focus on critiquing the internalisation of norms related to femicide and gender inequality in South Africa and Brazil. The international human rights regime has produced mixed normative success whereby it is imperative that international frameworks are amenable to the domestic normative contexts in which they operate. Although South Africa and Brazil have introduced transformative laws as well as internalised through community-based programs and initiatives, there is a greater need to transform the ways in which international norms are translated in the domestic sphere as there is a disconnect between national legislative aspirations and lived realties. This process must be evaluated and transformed in order to ensure effective impact translation and the successful internalisation of human rights norms.
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    Rethinking civil society and Pan-African participatory governance: the case of the African Union-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AU-NEPAD)
    (2021) Xavier, Romao
    This thesis is a journey of critical interrogation of power relations that underpin practices, techniques and rationalities of contemporary forms of governance represented by the governing strategy of the AU-NEPAD. It asks the question, ‘how is the Pan-African civil society made within the context of neo-liberalised Pan-African Institutions?’ To navigate this complex question, the study used a combination of three case studies, drawing on the nuanced conceptualisation of governmentality from Michel Foucault in conjunction with the Arnestein´s ladder of citizens ‘participation and the John Gaventa’s Powercube . The study found that there is a clear disconnect between the discourse on citizens driven AU-NEPAD and the praxis of enabling civil society to meaningfully engage in decision making processes. The use of neoliberal rationalities of governing which transform the governments of Member States into a self-disciplined neoliberal subject that must behave in an appropriately competitive fashion congruent with the ethos of market rationality is the AU-NEPAD attempt to discursively legitimise their political and developmental strategies through the imposition of a neoliberal economic agenda for Africa. AU-NEPAD promotes Pan African civil society to comply with neoliberal requirements and at the same time contests Pan African civil society through what Arnstein calls co-optation, on one hand, and the divide-and rule strategy, on the other hand, allowing AU-NEPAD to maintain the ‛status quo’. Therefore, Pan-African civil society faces monumental challenges to meaningfully participate (hardly going beyond placation and tokenism) in the making of a people´s driven and owned African Union. In addition, the study found that although heterogeneous in scope, capacities, size and resources endowment, Pan-African civil society undertakes ‘non-compliance’ as a counter response of hegemonic dominance from the AU-NEPAD. This is one possibility of Foucauldian ‘counter conduct’ through which Pan-African civil society undermines and challenges the shrinking of civic spaces and the AU governmental-driven forms of power, by setting up what Gaventa calls ´invented spaces´.
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    South Africa and regional stability: lessons from Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2013
    (2021) Matlhakoane, Boitshoko Grace
    This paper examines South Africa’s foreign policy towards the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2013, focusing on the decision to use peace-enforcement as opposed to traditional peacekeeping. The study will examine the phenomenon of peace-enforcement as an underutilized peacekeeping operation. The goal is to evaluate the force intervention brigade as a primary conflict resolution mandate. The report seeks to understand South Africa’s involvement in the peace-enforcement operation and further assess possible lessons that can be derived from this operation and may be applied to other countries that are prone to conflict
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    “The kids are all right”: youth activists as norm entrepreneurs. youth-led advocacy, socio-political justice and policy change in international politics
    (2021) Elgoni, Maryam
    This research paper aims to better understand the role of, and relative degree of power held by, youth-led advocacy movements in regard to the creation of policy change discourse, analysed through the lens of norm theory. Empirically, this is significant as it allows for more focused thinking on agenda-setting within youth advocacy movements, while academically, prompts conceptualisations on the role of youth advocates as non-state actors and norm entrepreneurs in International Relations. The paper will analyse theory around norms, policy formulation and youth participation, attempting to find the nexus between the three. The #FridaysForFuture case study will be explored in-depth, paying particular attention to the agents involved and the contexts within the advocacy occurred. The paper will show that youth are norm entrepreneurs who have increasingly spearheaded norm emergence, and who consequently play an increasingly important role in the discourse on policy change
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