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18511. Afghan Civil Society and a Comprehensive Peace Process

Author:
Lisa Schirch
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
A successful, legitimate and sustainable approach to peace in Afghanistan requires the inclusion of Afghan civil society and their interests. For the most part, Afghan peace negotiations exclude representatives of civil society and center on a narrow agenda featuring concerns of armed groups. Attempts at a quick fix settlement could compromise the foundations of durable peace, resulting in more costs to the international community, and more death and destruction on the ground. Half of all peace agreements fail. One of the reasons why they fail is that too few people support them. Building a national consensus requires participation by and support from civil society. Afghanistan requires a peace process that is both wide and deep, with structured mechanisms for participatory deliberation and decision-making involving diverse stakeholders from the top, middle and community levels of society. Based on examination of successful peace processes, there are four broad models of public participation in peace processes relevant for Afghanistan. These include direct participation in local peace processes, a national civil society assembly, representation at the central negotiation table and a public referendum to vote on a final agreement. The international community, the Afghan government and Afghan civil society can each take steps to ensure a comprehensive, successful and sustainable peace process.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, Peace Studies, Treaties and Agreements, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan

18512. Second Annual Conference on Preventing Violent Conflict

Author:
Lawrence Woocher, Jonas Claes, and Abiodun Williams
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
USIP's annual “Preventing Violent Conflict” conference is designed to spotlight the importance of the subject, address specific challenges facing prevention efforts and identify priority areas for USIP's future work on conflict prevention. This brief summarizes the highlights of that conference.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Political Violence, Crime, and War

18513. The Challenge of Keeping Haitians Safe

Author:
Robert Maguire and Courtney McCreesh
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
President Michel Martelly takes office at a time when Haitians are frustrated with the pace and scale of earthquake recovery and insecure about the future. Haitians are uncertain what to expect from their new leader who has promised much and who now must address a broad range of immediate needs. Progress toward improved personal, social, economic, environmental, political and energy security for Haiti's citizens has been mixed. The Haitian National Police comprise an important building block for improving Haiti's personal safety and security environment. A greater effort is needed to deal with Haiti's chronic problems with jobs, education, healthcare and housing.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Crime, and Economics
Political Geography:
Caribbean and Haiti

18514. Re-presenting Ireland: tourism, branding and national identity in Ireland

Author:
Michael Clancy
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
This article examines sources of national identity formation under rapidly changing social and economic conditions. Specifically, it links constructivist notions of national identity formation and reformulation to the growing practice of nation branding. Following a discussion of the contributions of constructivism to the literature on national identity, the article summarises the emergence of nation branding as a contemporary strategy to promote a particular image of the nation to a specific audience. While that audience was once confined to political and economic elites, it has broadened in recent years to include potential tourists, diaspora communities and even one's own citizens. The case study of tourism branding in Ireland demonstrates that while the branding message often differs from reality, its content constitutes a powerful tool for the state in reinforcing a particular notion of national identity.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Ireland

18515. Civilianising warfare: ways of war and peace in modern counterinsurgency

Author:
Colleen Bell
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
This article examines the emergence of counterinsurgency doctrine in Coalition interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. While counterinsurgency is complimentary to the tenets forwarded by its classical military predecessors in several respects, the article shows that it is also more than a refashioning of conventional military practice. Counterinsurgency is intimately tied to institutional practices that shape global liberal governance. It can be traced to dominant trends in international humanitarian, development and peace interventionism since the end of the Cold War and it deepens the links between the social development of war-affected populations and the politics of international security. Rather than simply a shift in military practice, counterinsurgency is distinguished by its investment in civilian modes of warfare. Counterinsurgency retells the narrative of intervention as part of the evolution of political and economic liberalisation, marking a passage from interventionary force to post-interventionary governance. Modern counterinsurgency, it is concluded, exposes the widening indistinction between contemporary modes of peace and those of war in international relations.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, Economics, War, Counterinsurgency, and Governance
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Iraq

18516. Civil–military cooperation in crisis management in Africa: American and European Union policies compared

Author:
Gorm Rye Olsen
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
Cooperation between civilian and military actors has become a catchphrase in international crisis management and development policy in the 21st century. This paper examines the crisis management policies adopted in Africa by the United States and the European Union (EU), respectively. It is hypothesised that both actors' crisis management policies are likely to be path dependent, despite recent significant changes in policy preferences. It is shown that the priority combining civilian and military resources in American crisis management is only implemented to a limited degree. It is consistent with the persistent predominance of the Pentagon and of the military instruments in US Africa policy. It illustrates the conspicuous institutional path dependency of US Africa policy, which by some is described as 'militarised'. The EU has been able to apply both civilian and military instruments in crisis management in Africa, suggesting the policy is not path dependent. The European situation is arguably attributable to the widespread consensus among European actors that it is necessary to combine civilian and military instruments in crisis management.
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and America

18517. What is critical IPE?

Author:
Ian Bruff and Daniela Tepe
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
International Political Economy (IPE) has, since its emergence in the 1970s, never been a settled discipline. From the beginning there have been disputes over whether one should seek to understand the agents acting within the international economic system or instead focus on ontological enquiries into the historical evolution of world order itself.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy

18518. Where did the critical go?

Author:
Owen Worth
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
The study of international political economy (IPE) has long proclaimed to have a critical side or focus. Accounts of the intellectual history of IPE were often concerned with the difference between the 'empiricist' or 'positivist' and the 'critical' approach to the discipline (Murphy and Nelson 2002; Cohen 2008)
Topic:
Political Economy and History

18519. 'What's "critical" about critical theory': capturing the social totality (das Gesellschaftliche Ganze)

Author:
Daniela Tepe and Anita Fischer
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
This is neither the first article to address the nature of Critical Theory,1 nor the first article to address the necessarily feminist character of Critical Theory. Given that most of the writing concerned with the latter was (largely) neglected in International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE) scholarship, it seems appropriate to do so again.
Topic:
International Relations and International Political Economy

18520. Finding space in critical IPE: a scalar-relational approach

Author:
Huw Macartney and Stuart Shields
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:
Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:
Our aim in this essay is to explore how critical international political economy (IPE) is spatially impaired, and how a scalar-relational approach offers a potential solution. By this, we mean that despite the plethora of spatial terms (national, international, global, transnational) applied as levels of analysis, the counter-hegemonic aspects of critical IPE are hamstrung by an inability to account for the production of space and the relations between particular scales.