Dissertation Defense - Kimairis Toogood: Brokering "peace" in competitive authoritarian Central Asian Regimes:
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Brokering "peace" in competitive authoritarian Central Asian Regimes: understanding peace building functions of informal and formal civil society in the Republic of Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic'
Tuesday, July 29th
11:00am - 1:00pm
Metropolitan Building Room 5145
Kimairis Toogood, PhD Candidate for Summer 2014 Defense.
July 29th, 2014 11am
This dissertation titled 'Brokering "peace" in competitive authoritarian Central Asian Regimes: understanding peace building functions of informal and formal civil society in the Republic of Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic' was designed to illustrate the meanings, beliefs and norms that underlie the attitudes and behaviors of civil society regarding the building of peace in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Using the following research question: How is civil society able to perform peacebuilding activities in hybrid regimes classified as competitive authoritarian? this dissertation investigates how civil society’s shared normative understanding of what will reduce structural and cultural violence and increase positive peace impact the performance of peacebuilding activities and the strategies used to perform those activities.
Using the social constructivist approach that stresses the important influence the context plays on attitudes and behaviors, this research uses qualitative data collection and theme analysis to illustrate the underlying meanings and norms that guide civil society’s performance of peace building activities. In both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the understanding that the movement from negative to positive peace will transform the conflict context leads to civil society's performance of a number of activities to reduce structural and cultural violence. Civil society's choice of a collaborative strategy in Tajikistan and a combative strategy in Kyrgyzstan are illustrative of how civil society creates the meaning of peace in society as well as interprets the permissibility of peace building activities vis-a-vis their competitive authoritarian regimes.