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Traditional approaches to conflict resolution Lederach Lederach is a leading proponent of transformation type conflict resolution who contends that conflict tends to occur where there are ethnic, regional and religious differences and arises over ‘long-standing animosities rooted in a perceived threat to identity and survival’ 1 and thus armed
6 African conflicts Around the same time as the Balkan Wars shook Europe, a wave of genocidal conflicts rippled through the African continent. They displayed patterns previously not characteristic of warfare in general and tribal warfare in particular. While violence, civil unrest, insurgencies and civil wars had been a recurring feature in many countries of the African continent, since the late 1980s, a number of large-scale and long-running conflicts of immense brutality, increasingly involving the civilian population, both women (as most numerous victims of
3 Identity conflict A basic feature of the universal human condition is the need to find commonality with others and form larger associations at the individual, group, and community level, and this is at the heart of the concept of identity. A variety of factors, ranging from physical attributes, language, and culture to societal norms and structures work to promote a selfawareness and self-consciousness of sameness with a larger collective. A significant positive benefit resulting from this shared identity is the ability to provide protection and security
Introduction Men experience sexual violence during armed conflict situations, which affects their physical, social and psychological well-being. However, this is under-researched and under-reported ( Vojdik: 2014 : 931), and often misunderstood and mischaracterised ( Kapur and Muddell, 2016 : 4). Consequently, men who experience conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) have been severely overlooked within the humanitarian
Drawing on more than 150 interviews with former IRA, INLA, UVF and UFF prisoners, this book is a major analysis of why Northern Ireland has seen a transition from war to peace. Most accounts of the peace process are ‘top-down’, relying upon the views of political elites. This book is ‘bottom-up’, analysing the voices of those who actually ‘fought the war’. What made them fight, why did they stop and what are the lessons for other conflict zones? Using unrivalled access to members of the armed groups, the book offers a critical appraisal of one-dimensional accounts of the onset of peace, grounded in ‘mutually hurting stalemate’ and ‘ripeness’, which downgrade the political and economic aspects of conflict. Military stalemate had been evident since the early 1970s and offers little in explaining the timing of the peace process. Moreover, republicans and loyalists based their ceasefires upon very different perceptions of transformation or victory. Based on a Leverhulme Trust project, the book offers an analysis based on subtle interplays of military, political, economic and personal changes and experiences. Combined, these allowed combatants to move from violence to peace whilst retaining core ideological beliefs and maintaining long-term constitutional visions. Former prisoners now act as ambassadors for peace in Northern Ireland. Knowledge of why and how combatants switched to peaceful methodologies amid widespread skepticism over prospects for peace is essential to our understanding of the management of global peace processes.
After three decades of violence, Northern Ireland has experienced unprecedented peace. It is now generally accepted that the peace accord which ended the Northern Ireland conflict, the 1998 Belfast Agreement, is an exemplar of this trend. This book examines the impact of the 1998 Agreement which halted the violence on the Northern Irish people. It covers changes in public opinion across all areas of society and politics, including elections, education, community relations and national identity. The surveys presented show that despite peace, Protestants and Catholics remain as deeply divided as ever. The book examines the development of the theory of consociationalism and how it has been woven into the intellectual debate about the nature of the Northern Ireland conflict. The role of religion in conflict transformation has emerged as an important issue in Northern Ireland. Ethnonationalism in Northern Ireland is fuelled by its multifaceted and complex nature. The constitutional position of Northern Ireland has been the topic of recurring debate since partition in 1920. The role of education in promoting social cohesion in post-conflict societies is often controversial. The book explores both the nature and extent of victimhood and the main perpetrators of the political violence. The key elements of a consociational approach include a grand coalition representing the main segments of society; proportionality in representation; community (segmental) autonomy; and mutual vetoes on key decisions. The main lesson of peace-making in Northern Ireland is that political reform has to be accompanied by social change across the society as a whole.
This book is a critical study of John Burton's work, which outlines an alternative framework for the study of international conflict, and re-examines conflict resolution. It argues that culture has a constitutive role in international conflict and conflict resolution. The book provides an overview of the mediation literature in order to locate problem-solving workshop conflict resolution within the context of peaceful third-party involvement. It analyses human needs thinking and examines the similarities between it and Burton's thinking. The book also examines the logic of Burton's argument by means of metaphor analysis, by analysing the metaphors which can be found in his human needs theory. It studies further Burton's views of action and rationality, and moves into phenomenology and social constructionism. The book takes as its starting-point a totalist theory of international conflict resolution, namely Burton's sociobiologically-oriented conflict theory, and demonstrates the logic of argument and the denial of culture underlying his problem-solving theory. It explains the dimensions of the social world in order to lay a foundation for the study of conflict and conflict resolution from the social constructionist perspective. The book presents a phenomenological understanding of conflict and problem-solving conflict resolution. Finally, it argues that problem-solving workshop conflict resolution can be best understood as an attempt to find a shared reality between the parties in conflict.
4 Globalisation and conflict: screening war in Kosovo and Chechnya It may be argued that one of the defining features of contemporary world politics has been the alleged resurgence of insecurity as a source of different forms of war.1 The end of the Cold War thus led to a reconsideration of questions of meaning in IR, alongside a broader set of debates about ‘asymmetrical’, ‘fourth generation’ and ‘irregular warfare’. At around the same time the Gulf War issued in a consideration about the role of technology, gesturing toward a form of state-to-state conflict
The famous 1960 film Exodus , 1 by Otto Preminger, is a particularly emblematic example of the way in which cinema portrays the conflict and forges a certain representation thereof in the eyes of the general public. It relates a key moment in the genesis of the dispute, describing a series of events surrounding the end of British Mandate over Palestine and the Partition Plan adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in November 1947. 2 A scene from this film allows us to illustrate two conceptions of international law that can be conveyed by the cinema
This book is about the European Union's role in conflict resolution and reconciliation in Europe. Ever since it was implemented as a political project of the post-World War II reality in Western Europe, European integration has been credited with performing conflict-resolution functions. The EU allegedly transformed the long-standing adversarial relationship between France and Germany into a strategic partnership. Conflict in Western Europe became obsolete. The end of the Cold War further reinforced its role as a regional peace project. While these evolutionary dynamics are uncontested, the deeper meaning of the process, its transformative power, is still to be elucidated. How does European integration restore peace when its equilibrium is broken and conflict or the legacies of enmity persist? This is a question that needs consideration. This book sets out to do exactly that. It explores the peace and conflict-resolution role of European integration by testing its somewhat vague, albeit well-established, macro-political rationale of a peace project in the practical settings of conflicts. Its central argument is that the evolution of the policy mix, resources, framing influences and political opportunities through which European integration affects conflicts and processes of conflict resolution demonstrates a historical trend through which the EU has become an indispensable factor of conflict resolution. The book begins with the pooling together of policy-making at the European level for the management of particular sectors (early integration in the European Coal and Steel Community) through the functioning of core EU policies (Northern Ireland).