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191. Chad's 2007 Peace Agreement Plagued by Poor Implementation

Author:
Delphine Djiraibe
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Political crises and armed opposition movements have plagued Chad for several years. After several failed peace initiatives, the August 13 Agreement was reached in 2007. The agreement is the most viable framework for bringing peace to Chad. It calls on the Chadian government to reform critical electoral institutions, undertake a credible electoral census and demilitarize politics in order to ensure fair and transparent elections. To date, the agreement has been poorly implemented. It jeopardizes the credibility of the upcoming legislative elections, currently scheduled for February 2011. Only comprehensive reform that addresses the development and governance challenges facing Chad will definitively end its political crisis.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Peace Studies, Treaties and Agreements, War, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa

192. Conjuring Spirits from the Vasty Deep: A User's Guide to Proposals for Strengthening UN Civilian Capacity in Peace Operations

Author:
Eric Morris
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
Although civilian specialists in peace operations have been in short supply, the same cannot be said of proposals to alleviate the problem. Governments, non - governmental organizations, think tanks, and even the United Nations itself have issued reports to address the civilian deficit in peace operations. Most of these papers acknowledge that there has been halting improvement over time, but express concern over a wide array of gaps and shortages in response capacity. Almost all agree that demand will continue to outrun supply. Almost all warn that failure to close the gaps and address the shortages will call into question the credibility and legitimacy not only of international peace operations but also of the fragile national and local institutions that these operations hope to build.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Civil Society, Peace Studies, United Nations, and Peacekeeping

193. Beyond the 'New Horizon': Proceedings from the UN Peacekeeping Future Challenges Seminar, Geneva, 23–24 June 2010

Author:
Cedric H. de Coning, Thierry Tardy, and Andreas Øien Stensland
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The past decade has seen a nine-fold increase in UN peacekeeping operations. With over 123,000 deployed personnel across 16 missions, and at a cost of approximately USD 8 billion per year, the scale of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping today is unprecedented. While prior reforms have enabled growth and helped to define the core strengths of operations, UN peacekeeping now finds itself, once again, at a crossroads: 'The scale and complexity of peacekeeping today are straining its personnel, administrative and support machinery.' The peacekeeping partnership is under stress – among contributors, the Security Council, and the UN Secretariat. Several current peacekeeping missions are deployed beyond their doctrinal and capacity comfort zones.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Peace Studies, Regional Cooperation, United Nations, International Affairs, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
United States

194. Cooperating for Peace: The Challenges and Promises of Partnerships in Peace Operations

Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
In the over two decades since UN peacekeepers won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988, the mechanisms and means for providing peacekeeping “supply” where it is needed continue to bedevil policy makers and those on the ground tasked with the difficult job of international intervention. Today, the peacekeeping agenda is packed with concerns such as the protection of civilians, peacekeeping when there is no peace to keep, managing spoilers, balancing humanitarian, peacebuilding and development imperatives, and the realization that vulnerability to relapse into conflict means that peacekeepers may be required for years and indeed decades to come.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation, Peace Studies, United Nations, and Peacekeeping

195. Building Partnerships in Peace Operations: The Limits of the Global/Regional Approach

Author:
Thierry Tardy
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
A consensus seems to exist on the need to tackle contemporary intra-state conflicts through a multiplicity of actors who display different comparative advantages and levels of expertise. For the United Nations as well as for the regional organisations that, since the end of the Cold War, have emerged as crisis management actors, working together is the way forward. The UN and the EU run or have run simultaneous operations in Africa (Democratic Republic of the Congo and Chad) and Kosovo and have largely institutionalised their cooperation; the UN took over operations initially deployed by the African Union in West Africa and in Burundi and the two institutions have created a hybrid UN-AU mission in Darfur; the EU is assisting the AU in the building-up of its Stand-by Force and finances AU operations; the EU, the OSCE and NATO have for some time shared the burden of security management in the Balkans. As noted in a UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) document, “reinforcing interoperability with key partners […] can enhance cooperation and ensure that we maximise finite global peacekeeping resources”. Indeed, given the scope of crisis management needs, not least the UN overstretch, burden-sharing has become an imperative and its corollary, inter-institutional partnerships, equally central. Yet, the establishment of partnerships among international institutions is facing important political and technical difficulties that make the prospect for an interlocking system unlikely.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Globalization, International Cooperation, Peace Studies, Regional Cooperation, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kosovo, and United Nations

196. Human Rights Education in Peace-building: A Look at Where the Practice Has Come from, and Where It Needs to Head

Author:
Tracey Holland
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:
The world's peace-building and development organizations increasingly are incorporating human-rights frameworks into the myriad of activities now under their purview. Slower to develop, however, are the capacity-building programs designed to impart knowledge about human rights to citizens and communities. Field-workers throughout the world indicate that the lack of such guidance-giving education hinders them when it comes to monitoring activities, helping to rebuild public institutions, setting up and organizing electoral politics, building an unfettered media, protecting human security, setting up transitional justice mechanisms, and the myriad of other peace-building activities and democratization challenges they face in post-conflict situations. This paper not only explores this emerging field of the study and practice of human-rights education within the cross-national peace-building sphere by sharing the perspectives of educators around the world, but also considers a host of ideas that should help to advance the human-rights agendas of present and future post-conflict planners.
Topic:
Security, Development, Human Rights, Human Welfare, International Law, Peace Studies, and Peacekeeping

197. Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons: Examining the Validity of Nuclear Deterrence

Author:
Ward Wilson, Ken Berry, Nikolai Sokov, Patricia Lewis, and Benoît Pélopidas
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Abstract:
The study on ―Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons: Examining the Validity of Nuclear Deterrence‖ by Ken Berry, Patricia Lewis, Benoît Pélopidas, Nikolai Sokov and Ward Wilson was commissioned by the Swiss Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and undertaken by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Peace Studies, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United Nations

198. China's Growing Role in UN Peacekeeping

Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Over the past twenty years China has become an active participant in UN peacekeeping, a development that will benefit the international community. Beijing has the capacity to expand its contributions further and should be encouraged to do so. China's approach to peacekeeping has evolved considerably since it assumed its UN Security Council (UNSC) seat in 1971, when it rejected the entire concept of peacekeeping. Now, with over 2,000 peacekeepers serving in ten UN peacekeeping operations worldwide, China's motivations for supporting and participating in peacekeeping have led it to adopt a case-by-case approach that balances those motivations against its traditional adherence to nonintervention. This pragmatic policy shift paves the way for China to provide much-needed personnel as well as political support and momentum for peacekeeping at a time when both conflicts and peacekeeping operations are becoming more complex. China's involvement also further binds it to the international system.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Foreign Policy, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Political Geography:
China and Beijing

199. Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research

Author:
Christopher Blattman and Edward Miguel
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Most nations have experienced an internal armed conflict since 1960. The past decade has witnessed an explosion of research into the causes and consequences of civil wars, belatedly bringing the topic into the economics mainstream. This article critically reviews this interdisciplinary literature and charts productive paths forward. Formal theory has focused on a central puzzle: why do civil wars occur at all when, given the high costs of war, groups have every incentive to reach an agreement that avoids fighting? Explanations have focused on information asymmetries and the inability to sign binding contracts in the absence of the rule of law. Economic theory has made less progress, however, on the thornier (but equally important) problems of why armed groups form and cohere, and why individuals decide to fight. Likewise, the actual behavior of armed organizations and their leaders is poorly understood. On the empirical side, a vast cross-country econometric literature has aimed to identify the causes of civil war. While most work is plagued by econometric identification problems, low per capita incomes, slow economic growth and geographic conditions favoring insurgency are the factors most robustly linked to civil war. We argue that micro-level analysis and data are needed to truly decipher war's causes, and understand the recruitment, organization, and conduct of armed groups. Recent advances in this area are highlighted. Finally, turning to the economic legacies of war, we frame the literature in terms of neoclassical economic growth theory. Emerging stylized facts include the ability of some economies to experience rapid macroeconomic recoveries, while certain human capital impacts appear more persistent. Yet econometric identification has not been adequately addressed, and there is little consensus on the most effective policies to avert conflicts or promote postwar recovery. The evidence is weakest where it is arguably most important: in understanding civil wars' effects on institutions, technology, and social norms.
Topic:
Economics, Peace Studies, Political Economy, and War

200. Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2009

Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
After several years of continuous expansion, reform and resiliency, in 2008 global peacekeeping was pushed to the brink. This publication warned in 2006 that peacekeeping faced a risk of overstretch. In 2007 it highlighted the mounting pressures on peacekeeping organizations, while stressing that peace operations had shown surprising resilience. By 2008 peacekeeping was spread increasingly thin, in many respects the victim of its own success. Our thematic review that year was by Lakhdhar Brahimi and Salman Ahmed. It cautioned that we risked unlearning the central lesson of the Brahimi Report: that peacekeeping is not a substitute for an effective political process.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Organization, Non-Governmental Organization, and Peace Studies