Peace and Conflict Studies

This essay seeks to examine in parts, the ostensible absence of women’s political participation, particularly in peace processes in Africa. The essay will draw experiences and examples from a couple of African countries to argue that women’s continuous absence in peace discourses is as a result of political stereotypes, backed by patriarchal norms and masculinity tendencies which usually epitomises maleness to the ‘knower’, ‘protector’, ‘powerful’, ‘leader’.

Therefore in instances were women are able to actively participate on equal capacities like their male counterparts, it goes against and threatens the constructed patriarchal systems and its flair of hegemony.

In the past twenty years, democratic participation through activism and civil disobedience has been increasingly expanded with the evolution of information and communication technology. It is assumed that the role of traditional media is not as influential as it once was due to the growing presence of self-made war journalists, hacktivists and whistleblowers, facilitated through the potential of the internet. The use of the latter as a tool from which information is disseminated rapidly, is fast influencing societal understanding and exposure to issues as they develop. Social media demonstrates precisely this phenomenon, in which people are able to accrue information and act upon it through mass communication and mobilisation. This article will therefore endeavor to analyse the evolution of media in conjunction with activism, from traditional media ethno-political conflict reporting, to today's whistleblowers and hacktivists that use the internet as their main platform. By factoring in these different aspects, this article is able to present a detailed account of the advantages and drawbacks of the latest developments in internet and technology, with special emphasis being placed on the role of online activism.

"Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos opens the book with his latest contribution to his comprehensive project of re-theorising spatial justice with a piece titled ‘Spatial Justice in a World of Violence’. Through a close reading
of the photographic series Fortunes of War, Life Day by artist Eric Lesdema,
Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos is interested in how these images reveal peripheral
spaces at the edge of violence which impose an ethic of spatial responsibility on the
viewer in the act of turning away and looking elsewhere. While no acts of explicit
violence are shown in the images, we are left with no doubt that violence is ubiquitous
along the spatio-temporal continuum. This continuum of violence between
bodies raises questions of complicity and responsibility. Do we submit to a state
of affairs in which space is saturated with the everyday and immobilised violence
of the ‘engineered atmosphere’ – or is it also possible for bodies to withdraw from
the atmosphere, through ruptures and folds within the continuum? Such a notion
raises the ethical possibility of the ‘emergence of spatial justice’." Chris Butler and Edward Mussawir (eds)

A comprehensive analysis of the war in the Ethiopian region of Tigray. This builds on the work of Volume 1, published in June 2021 and takes the narrative about the war to December 2021. With a forward by the former New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark.
Chapters on:
1. The development of the war, with maps.
2. Humanitarian relief and famine
3. Eritrea and the sanctions regime
4. Diplomacy - both in the region and by the international community
5. Sexual violence and rape
6. The role of the Eritrean and Tigrayan diasporas
7. The looting and destruction of Tigray's unique heritage

... Dedicated in loving memory to Cates Anderson Gossett and Linda Murray ... To my friends and colleagues, particularly Sydnye Allen, Silvia Bartolic, Scott Blackwood, Candace Boheme, Lila Bouchet, Maggie Brubaker, Melissa Curran, Kristin Doyle, Andy Fiegel, Lynn French ...

This course will examine the relationship between youth and conflict.  We will explore various definitions of youth as a biological, cultural, and political category.  We will discuss youth and children as victims of conflict, as perpetrators of violence, and as builders of peace.  Other topics include youth and nationalism, the effect of conflict on educational systems, the special situation of girls affected by conflict, the efforts of international child protection agencies and NGOs to work with children and youth affected by war, children’s testimonies of violence, and the involvement of youth in peacebuilding.

More than fifty years after subjection to anti-Jewish persecution, Holocaust survivors embody divergent responses to the conflict that endangered their existence. Narrative analysis of oral and written testimonies by survivors reveals three major modes of creatively reclaiming personal agency: avoiding violence by delimiting the realm of control, embracing violence through forcible dispensation of justice, and expanding agency by exercising personal ability in the economic realm. The first-person narratives of Jewish survivors illustrate this autopoeisis, or creative redirection of conflict. The testimonies reveal transformation as an ongoing process of working through rather than working out conflict, an approach that accords well with the Judaic moral principle of tikkun olam, the imperative to repair a fractured world.

The indigene/settler question has been central to scholarly discourses on land ownership, ethnicity and identity in Nigeria. The legacies of the 1804 Jihad and the subsequent divide and rule colonial model of governance are extant in the perennial struggles for territorial control and dominance of political, economic, religious and socio-cultural spaces. In Northcentral Nigeria, the Southern Kaduna scenario in Zangon Kataf presents a context of the overlaps of ethnoreligious crises across macro and micro spaces in which the broad Hausa versus non Hausa sentiments influenced the political, economic and social exclusion claims of the Atyap within the context of indigene/settler debates. The study results from a two-year ethnographic fieldwork in the community (between 2012 and 2014) during, which observations, key-informant interviews and focus group discussions were combined with historical data; in unpacking the political economy of the 1992 market crises, and also exploring the politics of inclusion as an effective management strategy on which different state interventions on recent crises in Southern Kaduna could be modelled.

Until recently most militaries tended to see moral issues through the lens of rules and regulations. Today, however, many armed forces consider teaching virtues to be an important complement to imposing rules and codes from above. A closer look reveals that it is mainly established military virtues such as honour, courage and loyalty that dominate both the lists of virtues and values of most militaries and the growing body of literature on military virtues. Although there is evidently still a role for these traditional martial virtues, it is equally evident that they are not particularly relevant to, for instance, military personnel operating drones. This chapter looks into the ethics of unmanned warfare from the perspective of military virtues and military ethics education, and addresses the question of what we need to solve that just-mentioned misalignment: 1) a new set of virtues; 2) a different interpretation of the existing virtues; or 3) a different approach altogether, that is, an alternative to teaching virtues? That we have to think about such questions is at least partly because unmanned systems bring risk asymmetry in war to a new level, making warlike virtues such as physical courage by and large obsolete. The last section of this chapter therefore addresses the question: to what extent does the possibility of riskless warfare makes drone use ‘virtue-less’?

The military instrument alone cannot deal with complex crises involving diverse communities.  Existing strategies, organizations, and force structures are in many cases poorly suited to future contingencies. Accordingly, national and intergovernmental organizations have sought responses to increasingly complex challenges. Among them is the notion of a comprehensive approach.  This paper examines the principles and mechanisms of a comprehensive approach as applied to multinational peacekeeping and maritime, cyber, and energy security.

Regardless of its military might, the current availability of powerful, easily-concealed weapons makes it difficult for any nation to ensure peace at home or abroad. Moreover, there is growing concern that fear-based strategies of defense and peace-making cannot create or maintain lasting peace. Against this dismal backdrop, recent research documents the effectiveness of a new peace-creating technology which is profound in its concept, affordable, and easily implemented. Over forty presented or published studies on this technology, which was derived from ancient Vedic knowledge by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, confirm its ability to reduce conflict, promote international cooperation, reduce societal disorder, and improve quality of life. The research is so compelling that, for the first time in modern history, alternative, nonthreatening strategies for securing peace can be realistically proposed.

The concept of peace has always attracted radical thought, action, and practices. It has been taken to mean merely an absence of overt violence or war, but in the contemporary era it is often used interchangeably with 'peacemaking', 'peacebuilding', 'conflict resolution', and 'statebuilding'. The modern concept of peace has therefore broadened from the mere absence of violence to something much more complicated.

In this Very Short Introduction, Oliver Richmond explores the evolution of peace in practice and in theory, exploring our modern assumptions about peace and the various different interpretations of its applications.

This article discusses the efficacy of community-based peacebuilding efforts to develop sustainable peace in conflict-torn communities. Using participatory action research (PAR) is a powerful means of developing sustainable solutions to a conflict: It provides the means to test peace theories and draw upon a community's knowledge and strengths in order to develop interventions. The knowledge gained can be lost if not understood within national or regional contexts, particularly if there is divergence between interests that can destroy community-based peacebuilding accomplishments. Holistic approaches facilitate sustainable peace and foster learning applicable to other situations. Two case studies, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, identified broad principles that potentially can be applied in the development of policies and practices. In the Nigerian case, two communities had experienced years of conflict. The PAR component was based on participatory dialogue. In the Zimbabwe case, politica...

Philippine Public Administration, as a discipline and a practice, has played a key role in institution building and capacity development over the years. This has been true even during conflict and post-conflict periods. The chapter delves into how conflict situations have affected Philippine Public Administration by discussing it through an interstate and intra-state conflict that the country has been confronted with through different periods of its history. The first case discusses the various public reorganization and civil service initiatives within the ambit of the interstate backdrop of post-World War II reconstruction. The second case tackles how public administration mechanisms and institutions have been designed and set up as a response to an intra-state conflict in the Southern Philippines, more popularly known as the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, that has seen armed struggle since the 1970s brought about by the Muslim minorities' rebellion against the central government.

La transformación de conflictos y la interculturalidad son conceptos que se vienen usando de manera creciente en América Latina como propuestas para ayudar a hacer frente a la creciente conflictividad socio-ambiental en la región. Pocos han sido, sin embargo, los esfuerzos para ayudar a definir de manera sencilla y desde una perspectiva crítica en qué consisten estos conceptos y cuáles son sus posibles aportes y desafíos para una gestión de territorios multiculturales sometidos a crecientes presiones
de desarrollo e impactos ambientales.
Este libro hace este aporte a través de una exploración
colectiva y participativa entre académicos, facilitadores,
líderes indígenas, hombres y mujeres que buscan el
buen vivir y el respeto hacia la naturaleza. De tal
manera, el libro que tiene en sus manos no es un
estudio o una propuesta hecha por un “experto”, es
un coro de voces que quieren llamar la atención
sobre temas cardinales de una gestión ambiental y
territorial basada en el bien común colectivo. Por eso,
el coro, a través del libro, cuenta, cuestiona, explica
y hace bocetos sobre posibles salidas colectivas a la
conflictividad socio-ambiental a través de estrategias
que interpelan los poderes hegemónicos, y que
buscan avanzar hacia una gestión intercultural de
territorios en mayores condiciones de equidad.

With all the turmoil and conflict taking place around the world, it is often tempting to think of the Western Balkans as yesterday’s problem. While it is true that the prospect of armed conflict has diminished significantly over the past two decades, there are still issues that contribute to a broader sense of instability. Until recently, three major issues undermined the region’s path towards ‘normality,’ whatever that may mean in the current international environment. The first, and most intractable of these is Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even though it has been over 20 years since the 1995 Dayton Agreement ended the vicious and bloody war in the country, Bosnia remains deeply divided. The second issue is Kosovo. The February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence remains a source of deep divisions, both regionally and internationally. Last, and truly least, was the so-called Macedonia name issue. Although viewed by many outsiders as a somewhat bizarre, if not wholly ridiculous, issue, the effects of the dispute were anything but laughable. It led to the wholesale corruption of the Macedonian state and impeded the general process of Euro-Atlantic integration in Southeast Europe. And yet, after 25 years, the issue has finally been resolved.

Baha’u’llah’s Bishārāt (Glad-Tidings):
A Proclamation to Scholars and Statesmen
Christopher Buck and Youli A. Ioannesyan
Baha’i Studies Review 16 (2010): 3–28.

This article is a historical and textual study of the one of the major writings of Baha’u’llah: the Lawḥ-i Bishārāt (‘Tablet of Glad-Tidings’), revealed circa 1891, and advances new theories as to its provenance and purpose. The ‘Tablet of Glad-Tidings’ is a selective compendium of Baha’u’llah’s laws and principles, sequentially presented in a series of fifteen ‘Glad-Tidings.’ As the Arabic term, bishārāt, suggests, these ‘Glad-Tidings’ were a public announcement of some of the essential teachings of the new Baha’i religion. The ‘Glad-Tidings’ is the most extensive of several ‘Tablets’ by Baha’u’llah that present key teachings in a numbered structure. The Glad-Tidings may, in part, be regarded as serially articulated ‘world reforms’ intermixed with religious reforms emanating from Baha’u’llah in his professed role as ‘World Reformer.’ The ‘Glad-Tidings’ also functioned analogously (albeit anachronistically) to a press release, serving not only as a public proclamation, but to rectify the inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations that had previously circulated in print. Intended for widespread translation and publication, the Glad-Tidings was sent to scholars — notably Russian orientalist, Baron Viktor Rosen (1849–1908) and Cambridge Orientalist, Edward Granville Browne (1862–1926) — and possibly pre-revolutionary Russian statesmen as well. As a ‘Proclamatory Aqdas,’ the Tablet of Glad-Tidings was part of a much broader proclamation by Baha’u’llah, who proclaimed his mission to the political and religious leaders of the world. This study will argue that the Baha’u’llah may have revealed the Tablet of Glad-Tidings for E.G. Browne — or rather through him, since Baha’u’llah evidently intended that Browne should translate and publish the Bishārāt in order to make the nature of the Baha'i teachings more widely known. This would then correct the distortions that had previously been published regarding Baha’u’llah's purpose and the nature of the religion that he founded, thereby, promoting a public awareness that a new world religion was on the horizon of modernity.

Northern Irish people still hide secrets behind doors because of the fear of potential resurfacing of conflicts. The changes brought about by “the Good Friday Agreement (GFA)” present a lack of equality in terms of housing, employment, healthcare, politics, and education. Nowadays, the North illustrates cracks everywhere as a backlash from the errors of the past.
The creation of modern Belfast will not change stories, because memories maintain people aware of the suffering that they had to pass through. Indeed, Eibhlin is going to talk about the reasons why the government should remember the struggles of its people, from the BallyMurphy Massacre to the Hunger Strikes.

This study explores who Turkish citizens view as the Other, their perceptions, evaluations, and the degree of Othering of these groups in the private and public spheres. Drawing from varied political science and social psychology literature, it also examines the role of social contact, perceived threat, and the strength of national and religious identification in predicting levels of Othering. Using a national representative sample, the findings reveal that Kurds are the most Othered group in the private sphere, while both Kurds and AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – Justice and Development Party) supporters are the most Othered groups in the public sphere. Regardless of who the Other is, lower social contact and higher levels of perceived threat are associated with higher levels of Othering of Kurds, Alevis, AKP supporters, and AKP opponents in both the private and public spheres.

Keywords: Othering, Turkey, polarisation, ethnicity, sectarianism, ideological divide

Informe de la Fundación Ideas para la Paz.

"Desde su constitución como centro de pensamiento independiente en 1999, la Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP)
ha tenido como uno de sus principales objetivos contribuir
de manera eficaz a la comprensión de todos los actores armados y escenarios relacionados con el conflicto armado
en Colombia. Teniendo en cuenta lo anterior, la FIP elaboró
el presente informe que busca a través de fuentes estadísticas
y cualitativas, reconstruir buena parte de la evolución
que ha tenido el conflicto armado en los últimos 25 años.

Los hace a través de seis tesis que explican sus dinámicas
más recientes, haciendo énfasis en aquellas regiones
donde el Gobierno Nacional reconoce que el conflicto sigue
activo y tiene mayor impacto. En este informe también se
actualiza el diagnóstico de impacto humanitario que tienen
estas dinámicas del conflicto sobre la población civil, y se
incluyen una serie de reflexiones acerca de los logros y retos
que enfrentan las Fuerzas Militares en la actualidad.
Este informe y el trabajo investigativo que lo respalda, fue
realizado gracias al apoyo del Programa de Reintegración
con Enfoque Comunitario que implementa la Organización
Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM), con el respaldo
económico de la Agencia de Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo
Internacional (USAID). Los contenidos son responsabilidad
de la Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP) y no reflejan
necesariamente las opiniones de USAID o de OIM". (Tomado del informe)

One of the conflicts that had defied all attempts to resolve it is the Israeli and Palestine conflict, and recently the United States of America introduced a policy on the status of Jerusalem that seems to further escalate the conflict. This paper examined the politics of Israeli and Palestine conflict using intractable conflict theory, with specific objectives of identifying the factors escalating the conflict, ascertaining the role of the superpowers in escalating the conflict as well as looking at all the past efforts to de-escalate Israeli and Palestine conflict and why they failed. The study used Enemy System Theory as a framework of analysis. Data was sourced from documentary sources that contain information on the conflict while content analysis was used to analyze data. The study found that factors triggering the conflict are: a contention by the two groups of people (that is Israel and Palestine) over ownership of the same piece of land and the United States of America's interest in maintaining hegemony in the Middle East. All the past efforts failed because of lack of commitment and mistrust among the parties (Israel and Palestine) and their allies especially the one of the United States of America who vetoes resolutions capable of ending Israeli-Palestine conflict. The study recommends that the United Nations Security should implement/enforce the 1947 Two State solution for both Israel and Palestine as contained its resolution 181 of 1947. That the United States of America should rescind its hegemonic influence in the Middle East and work towards a final settlement of the conflict based on UNSC resolution 181 of 1947. That both Israel and Palestine should stop using any form of violence such as terrorist acts against each other but should resort to pacific means to de-escalate the conflict.

This PhD thesis engenders new approaches to the understanding, appreciation, and experience of modern and contemporary ceramic art. It focusses on two recent outputs. The initial, Scorched Earth: 100 Years of Southern African Potteries (2016), a scholarly publication, and the latter, Post-colonialism? (2016/2017), a socially-engaged international exhibition, held at the Benyamini Contemporary Ceramics Centre in Tel Aviv, Israel. The moral philosophy ubuntu was proposed as a component of self-reflexive methodology for research and curatorial projects. The term cryrator was advanced as constituting an approach to curatorial praxis in conflict zones. These concepts make an original contribution to existing methodologies and research that historicise, de-westernise, and decolonise knowledge.

Following the disputed December 2016 presidential elections in The Gambia, both the African Union and the United Nations Security Council gave ECOWAS backing for intervening in the country politically. The question that often divides Gambians was whether the intervention was justified. While both international institutions expressed their backing for what was otherwise an ECOWAS policy and quest, the latter backing did not allow for the use of military intervention by ECOWAS. The assignment seeks to evaluate the peace and security implications of the last political impasse in the Gambia and its impact on the country's economy during the past 13 months while briefly highlighting the role ECOWAS played to end the impasse and the international legal justifications for the intervention and concludes that the intervention is justified.

Conflict Analysis is an important aspect of peace-building and the nitty-gritty involved which can simply be defined as a dynamic process to measure or access an ongoing conflict be it local, national or global. One of the importance of Good Conflict analysis is that it helps in sorting through, prioritize and understand those relationships and just as importantly how the context (or the operating environment) influences the nature of the conflict, but also the importance of focusing on context (the course of the conflicts) and not just on a given conflict.

Le Royaume ambitionne d’être reconnu comme une puissance africaine émergente dans son identité comme dans son espace de projection. Afin de satisfaire ces ambitions, l’appareil diplomatique se développe et se modernise, tandis qu’une identité de rôle singulière émerge autour de la notion de « juste milieu ». Cette étude présente, sur le plan empirique, les conditions de l’élaboration et de la conduite de cette politique africaine, et analyse, sur le plan théorique, l’évolution de l’identité de rôle marocaine à l'échelle internationale.

This study analyzes controversies and public attitudes concerning the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)
and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. The research question is: Which factors affect attitudes toward the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera in contemporary Ukraine? This article employs comparative and regression analyses of surveys commissioned by the author and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2009 and 2013 to determine the effects of regional and other factors on attitudes toward these organizations and the OUN-B leader. The study shows that regional factors and perceptions of these organizations' involvement in mass murder were the strongest predictors of the views concerning the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera. Their public support is strongest in Galicia and weakest in the East and the South, in particular, in Donbas and Crimea, two major conflict areas since the “Euromaidan.”