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401. Engaging with Youth, Engaging with War

Author:
Helen Brocklehurst
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
Youth and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Agents of Change has been written with great precision, focus, and clarity. It is short but powerful, much like the lives and experiences it documents. As such it makes an extremely erudite and important contribution to our understanding of the role that youth can play in countries emerging from conflict.
Topic:
War

402. Mapping Political Violence – The Approaches and Conceptual Challenges of Subnational Geospatial Analyses of Intrastate Conflict

Author:
Alexander De Juan
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The rationale is straightforward and persuasive: intrastate conflicts are by definition subnational phenomena. If we want to understand them fully, it may be wise to refocus our attention from the country level to the subnational level. Where violence is located might inform us as to why it erupts and how it is linked to various political, economic or social factors. The number of statistical geospatial analyses undertaken at the subnational level has been increasing constantly in recent years. Even though such studies have contributed greatly to peace and conflict research, they have come with their own challenges. Most importantly, they often do not adequately consider the theoretical and conceptual implications of switching from conventional cross‐country to subnational analysis; this has led to dubious theoretical arguments and conclusions. Moreover, operationalization and measurement issues often limit these analyses' explanatory power. The paper reviews several geospatial analyses of violent conflict, points out the limitations of the previous research and proposes some potential avenues for improvement.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Security, Political Violence, Economics, and War

403. Negotiating disarmament and demobilisation in peace processes: what is the state of the evidence?

Author:
Robert Muggah and Matthias Rieger
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
This report considers the extent to which disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) and related concepts are accounted for in peace processes and peace agreements. It focuses on the scale and scope of provisions for disarmament and demobilisation in peace agreements, the nature of their sequencing and inclusion in such agreements, and the types of security mechanisms intended to promote confidence among parties. It finds that key provisions for DDR are present in over half of all comprehensive peace agreements (numbering 37 in total) and fewer than 5% of all related peace accords, protocols and resolutions (numbering 640 in total). This review does not discern clear patterns of where key concepts are located or distributed in peace agreements. In reviewing negotiating experiences, however, it finds that “disarmament” and “demobilisation” are often relegated to the end of talks and/or left ambiguous in peace agreements themselves. Mediators or parties to a conflict thus seldom regard disarmament and demobilisation as preconditions for negotiations. They are nevertheless central to wider questions of security sector transformation and transitional justice in the aftermath of war.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Treaties and Agreements, and War

404. Islamic Reform and Arab Nationalism: Expanding the Crescent from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean (1880s-1930s)

Author:
Mohamed Saleh
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This is a well documented book focusing on the Omani Ibadhi religious elite and their role in the socio-cultural, historical and political development of the north- western Indian Ocean basin between the period around the partition of Africa and the Second World War. The book is composed of seven chapters, plus 23 pages of references and notes to sources, and 19 pages of bibliography that help the reader map out the contours of the discussion and aid scholars interested in pursuing the same line of research.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Africa and Arabia

405. Somalia: An Opportunity that Should Not Be Missed

Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The next six months will be crucial for Somalia. The international community is taking a renewed interest in the country; the mandate of the feeble and dysfunctional Transitional Federal Government (TFG) expires in a half-year; and emboldened troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), Kenya and Ethiopia are keen to deal the weakened (though still potent) extremist Islamist movement Al-Shabaab further defeats. This confluence of factors presents the best chance in years for peace and stability in the south and centre of the country. To achieve that, however, requires regional and wider international unity of purpose and an agreement on basic principles; otherwise spoilers could undermine all peacebuilding efforts.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Islam, Terrorism, War, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Africa and Somalia

406. God and Caesar in America

Author:
David Campbell and Robert Putnam
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
A Feb. 29 update to the print story from the March/April issue: In the wake of the Great Recession it would seem natural that the 2012 election would be fought over economic issues. Yet so far in the Republican primaries, we have seen social issues, and religion especially, move to the forefront. Rick Santorum is only the latest in a series of Republicans who have infused their campaigns with talk about God. Even Mitt Romney, a Mormon who has generally tried to avoid discussing religion, has recently pledged to defend "religious liberty" against the Obama administration. Increasingly, the rhetoric of the leading Republican contenders echoes the Republican fringe of twenty years ago. Then, we heard Pat Buchanan -- the quintessential protest candidate -- bombastically declare that America was in the midst of a culture war. Today, the frontrunners all play to the Republican base by describing the White House's "war on religion."
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
America

407. Why We Still Need the World Bank

Author:
Robert Zoellick
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
In 2007, the World Bank was in crisis. Some saw conflicts over its leadership. Others blamed the institution itself. When the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the cornerstone of what became the World Bank Group, was founded in 1944, poor and war-torn countries had little access to private capital. Sixty years later, however, private-sector financial flows dwarfed public development assistance. “The time when middle-income countries depended on official assistance is thus past,” Jessica Einhorn, a former managing director of the World Bank wrote in these pages in 2006, “and the IBRD seems to be a dying institution.” In roundtable discussions and op-ed pages, the question was the same: Do we still need the World Bank?
Topic:
War and World Bank
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Japan, and Europe

408. True Peace Is Hard To Find

Author:
David Harris
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
After reading the compelling case made by Yosef Kuperwasser and Shalom Lipner in “The Problem Is Palestinian Rejectionism” (November/December 2011), it was quite jarring to read the companion piece, “Israel's Bunker Mentality,” by Ronald Krebs. Krebs' argument boils down to this: Israel was doing quite nicely as a liberal, secular state until 1967, when a war mysteriously descended on it, and since then an illiberal, ethnocentric nationalism has taken over and redefined the country. In the process, Krebs contends, Israel became enamored with the occupation of territories acquired during the Six-Day War, helped along by a growing ultra-Orthodox community and large-scale Russian immigration.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Israel, and Palestine

409. The Concept of Justice: Is Social Justice Just?

Author:
Trevor Burrus
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Justice is the primary object of political philosophy. Yet, like so many of our highest aspirations, we are prone to use capacious words that can create consensus in their most abstract formulations but engender discord, if not worse, in more specific forms. “Justice” hasalways been like this. During a civil war or an intense political conflict, both sides will preach the justness of their cause, and neither will claim to be fighting on the side of “injustice.”
Topic:
War

410. Strategic Support to Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan, 2001-2010

Author:
Christian Dennys and Tom Hamilton-Baillie
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This paper argues that security sector reform (SSR) in Afghanistan suffers from a lack of strategic direction and political agreement. It focuses on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), and police and army reform in two case studies — Baghlan province and Nahr-I Sarraj district in Helmand province — in order to demonstrate the pitfalls of an SSR process driven by operational activities in the absence of an overarching strategy. The paper then examines the role of the Office of the National Security Council (ONSC) within the Afghan government in order to account for the lack of strategic direction in SSR before providing recommendations on how to avoid such problems in the future.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Asia