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161. South Sudan’s Civil War: Violence, Insurgency and Failed Peacemaking

Author:
Stephen Arrno
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
This scholarly contribution by John Young offers an insightful critique and evaluation of liberal peacemaking and internationalism that has shaped post-cold war approaches to Africa. Examining South Sudan’s peacemaking process, the book refutes modernist and liberal peace epistemologies that deficiency in governance, underdevelopment, and failed peace are caused by internal factors. The main argument is that failed peacemaking in South Sudan, and previously in Sudan, has been induced by external forces. Organised into eight chapters, South Sudan’s Civil War: Violence, Insurgency and Failed Peacemaking outlines missed opportunities to resolving the Sudan conflict. The author takes the Turco-Egyptian empire that exposed South Sudan to a global economy of slavery as the starting point. The British who came to the Sudan to avenge the death of Gordon Pasha established an administration of ‘benign neglect’ that ended in the integration of South Sudan into an asymmetrical economy and polity. After two civil wars, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) enabled the birth of an independent South Sudan, with the Agreement providing a trade-off between self-determination and democratic transformation (p. 10). The ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), manufactured shallow political unity to promote the referendum for independence. All promises for an elaborate transformative agenda and successful post-independence transitional period were abandoned and neglected. The book criticises the liberation movement (SPLM) and the United States (US) administration for causing conflict. The central thesis of the book considers the independence of South Sudan as the root cause of conflict by endorsing the SPLM’s tyranny (p. 65).
Topic:
Civil War, Insurgency, Violence, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Africa and South Sudan

162. Inclusion is Not Enough to Achieve Gender and Racial Equality in Global Peace and Security

Author:
Signe Marie Cold-Ravnkilde, Marsha Henry, Robin May Schott, and Nina Wilen
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
In January 2021, the Danish Ministry of Defence launched a new plan setting out how Denmark should implement United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 of 2000, which is the cornerstone of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda (WPS). The plan contains concrete steps for incorporating gender and diversity perspectives into the Danish defence forces, ranging from recruitment to solving peace and conflict-related tasks globally. Indeed, the timing is right. As Denmark prepares its candidature for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) from 2025, gender equality has been identified as one of the key priorities in the country’s contribution to global peace. Against this backdrop, how can the Danish contribution to this field avoid previous pitfalls and help to open up a broader space for equality in global peace and security? Twenty years ago, women’s movements across the world put women and human security on the global peace agenda. With UNSCR 1325, member states committed themselves to mainstreaming a gender perspective into matters of conflict and peacebuilding. While the WPS agenda is sometimes presented as an achievement of the Global North, many countries from the Global South have made contributions to gender equality, and there is now a growing global ownership of this normative agenda. The WPS’s focus on women’s experience in conflict was an important step in moving away from their invisibility in conflict. The attention of journalists and international courts to war practices that harm women specifically, including rape and sexual abuse, have had enormous significance for public awareness and the sense of justice. However, the past twenty years have also exposed major gaps in the WPS agenda. Focusing on women alone is not sufficient for understanding how practices and values in organisations and cultural contexts reinforce both gendered and racialised power hierarchies in the civilian and military worlds. Experiences from international peacekeeping since 2000 foreground the need for an epistemological and practical shift. To understand the challenges to equality in the global peace agenda, an intersectional lens is needed to examine how multiple systems of power, including gender, race, North-South axes of power, age, class and religion, co-exist and interact with each other.
Topic:
Security, Peacekeeping, Violence, Inclusion, and Gender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

163. Resilience in Post-civil War, Authoritarian Burundi: What Has Worked and What Has Not?

Author:
Gervais Rufyikiri
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
In Burundi the rise of authoritarianism during the post-civil war period fuelled endless political tensions that resulted in intermittent violent but low-intensity conflicts. This Geneva Paper focuses on identifying and understanding the drivers of the positive outlook that characterises Burundians even though the country has often been on the brink of relapsing into a major civil war. The most striking observation is that Burundians have demonstrated a notable capacity for resilience. Resilience theory is briefly discussed, followed by sections on the dynamics of violent conflicts in Burundi, resilient post-war politics, and attempts to heal the country after the ending of the civil war. The role of non-state domestic actors, international actors and community-level actors are then discussed in this regard.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Conflict, Violence, and Resilience
Political Geography:
Africa and Burundi

164. Trauma and Memory in Vietnamese America: Anti-Communism, Authoritarianism, and Anti-Asian

Author:
Viet Thanh Nguyen, Hoi Trinh, Lan Cao, Eugenia Lean, John Phan, and Lien-Hang Nguyen
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
On January 6, 2021, the former Republic of Vietnam (RVN) flag of the vanquished South Vietnam regime flew alongside the Confederate flag and other emblems of white supremacy on the steps of the Capitol. This panel, which includes Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, acclaimed human rights activist and lawyer Hoi Trinh (his father is a reeducation camp survivor), Law Professor and author Lan Cao, as well as Hang Nguyen and John Phan, discussed the contested memory of the Vietnam War, the politics of the RVN flag in U.S. politics today, and the impact on US-SRV relations moving forward. This event was organized by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) at Columbia University.
Topic:
History, Trauma, Memory, Violence, and Anti-Communism
Political Geography:
Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and United States of America

165. Possibilities for Epistemic Violence in Asylum Process: Lessons From the Case of Finland

Author:
Katri Gadd and Laura Lehtikunnas
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
In 2015, Europe noticed that the Common European Asylum System malfunctions in “crises”-like-situations. With the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, the European Union (EU) tries to ensure an efficient and humane migration management. Migration being a highly polarising issue, fuelled by populist rhetoric, migration policies must be founded on scientifically discovered implications of the policies. Here, we evaluate the Finnish asylum process through analysing the legislation, legal practice and 70 former asylum seekers’ experiences. We merge these viewpoints through the concept of epistemic violence understood as failures in linguistic exchanges harming the speaker. We examine whether the legal amendments in Finland, increased the possibilities for epistemic violence in the asylum process. At worst, epistemic violence results wrongly motivated decisions in asylum cases. Based on the case of Finland, this paper argues that more research is needed in times of efficiency pressure regarding asylum processes and overall contestation related to the legitimacy of the EU migration policies.
Topic:
Migration, Regional Cooperation, European Union, Violence, and Asylum
Political Geography:
Europe and Finland

166. Engaging men and boys to prevent violence against women

Author:
Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI)
Abstract:
While women must remain at the centre of and lead efforts to prevent the violence against them, men must join the movement as allies, and gender transformative interventions that engage men in thoughtful ways can be highly effective. The process of engaging men and boys in the prevention of violence against women has gained momentum over the past 20 years, with growing evidence that well-designed and holistic interventions involving both men and women can work. Interventions focusing solely on men are ineffective in shifting strongly entrenched social norms that drive violence against women, and we must support structural policy changes.1 Between 2016 and 2020, the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI), in partnership with the World Bank Group, funded several studies into interventions that engage men in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and North African region. These studies address local gender norms and context-specific risk factors associated with men abusing women. The SVRI will continue supporting research that builds evidence for accountable, effective and sustainable programmes that engage men in preventing and responding to violence against women in low- and middle-income countries.
Topic:
Gender Based Violence, Youth, Violence, Sexual Violence, and Engagement
Political Geography:
North America

167. An evidence review of violence prevention in South Africa

Author:
Matodzi Amisi and Sara N Naicker
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI)
Abstract:
This policy brief presents findings from an evidence review of violence prevention interventions implemented in South Africa. The review draws on an evidence map published in 2019,1 and additional papers since then. It includes evidence generated through qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The review summarises the available evidence, with an assessment of quality, and perhaps most importantly it highlights the contextual factors that impact success. The review was guided by the question: ‘How and in what context do interventions impact perpetration and victimisation; and how can violence prevention interventions be implemented at scale?’ The approach taken to answer this question is similar to a narrative review. The objective was not to aggregate results from the studies but to summarise the evidence. Narrative review typically involves the selection, chronicling and ordering of evidence to produce an account of the evidence. This allowed us to include both qualitative and quantitative studies, a range of interventions, and to be interpretive. The review was carried out in four phases (Chart 1). Each paper or report was read in full and data extracted. In addition, an assessment of the quality of evidence presented in each paper or report was undertaken. A standardised tool rated each study on its conceptualisation, research question, sample size, context, control of confounding variable, etc.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Gender Based Violence, Violence, Sexual Violence, and Victims
Political Geography:
Africa

168. Expert Meeting on Assessing Atrocity Risk in Northwest and Southwest Cameroon: Rapporteur's Report

Author:
Alex Vandermaas-Peeler
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
In response to ongoing atrocities in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions, this expert meeting focused on ways in which atrocity risk could be heightened. In order to better specify the mass atrocity risks, meeting participants explored plausible scenarios in which atrocities would significantly worsen. These “worst-case” scenarios, detailed below, can inform atrocity prevention efforts and assist in generating targeted policy suggestions. The scenarios are not predictions, but they highlight some of the ways atrocities could worsen in coming months and years.
Topic:
Violence, Public Policy, Risk, and Atrocities
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon

169. Surface Tension: ‘Communal’ Violence and Elite Ambitions in South Sudan

Author:
Dan Watson
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
Abstract:
This report examines recent developments in South Sudan. The country has been experiencing a surge in ‘communal’ violence in the wake of a peace agreement signed in 2018, as the oil economy that has underpinned South Sudanese elite politics for over 15 years begins to disintegrate. This analysis re-interprets ‘communal’ violence in South Sudan, situating conflicts organized around ethnic or sub-ethnic lines in relation to national-level conflicts and inter-elite rivalries. These conflicts and elite dynamics are changing in response to the decarbonization of South Sudan, which is pushing elite ambitions away from the capital and back into provincial areas.
Topic:
Political Violence, Treaties and Agreements, Violence, and Elites
Political Geography:
Africa and South Sudan

170. Appetite for Destruction: The Military Counter-Revolution in Sudan

Author:
Dan Watson
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
Abstract:
The military coup d’état in Sudan on 25 October 2021 sent shockwaves across the region and through diplomatic circuits. Following the arrest of the civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and several prominent senior officials from the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), demonstrators took to the streets across Khartoum. They were confronted by soldiers from the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries in the capital, with reports emerging of Central Reserve Police paramilitaries also being deployed (Human Rights Watch, 29 October 2021). Over 10 people have reportedly been killed by state forces thus far and over 160 wounded (Radio Dabanga, 29 October 2021; UN OCHA, 28 October 2021), with at least some victims uninvolved in the demonstrations (Eye Radio, 27 October 2021). Demonstrations have since spread across much of Sudan.
Topic:
Violence, Coup, Counterrevolution, Demonstrations, and Military
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan