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7651. Insight on Syria: Documenting the "Burden of War" on Syrians

Author:
Michelle Nicholasen
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The war in Syria is remarkable in its cumulative destruction of a society in a short six years. The toll on human life has been heavy; the involvement of multiple states, factions, and terrorist groups undermines resolution; the instigation of forced migration unprecedented; and the unfettered aerial bombardments against civilians—and perhaps most viciously, the deliberate destruction and targeting of health care facilities, health care workers, and patients—have defied all norms of war. Achieving an accurate picture of the human cost of this conflict has been an extraordinary challenge for aid agencies and health officials. In an effort to understand the impact of the war thus far, last winter the British medical journal the Lancet convened a commission of medical professionals to investigate and report on this conflict through the lens of public health. In Lancet parlance, a commission is always anchored at an elite university; in this case the American University of Beirut (AUB). In an early publication to set the stage, The Lancet-AUB Commission on Syria (the Commission) has called Syria “the most dangerous place on earth for health care providers,” and notes that the many reported atrocities “undermine the principles and practice of medical neutrality in armed conflict.” One of the three co-chairs leading the Commission is Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Jennifer Leaning, François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who has studied war and its long-term effects on societies in many parts of the world, including in the Middle East. Her fellow Commission co-chairs are Professor Iman Nuwayhid, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at AUB, and Dr. Samer Jabbour, a cardiologist on the AUB faculty. The Weatherhead Center sat down with Jennifer Leaning to discuss the Commission’s work, its goals, and the scope of the devastation in Syria.
Topic:
Civil War, Displacement, Civilians, Public Health, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

7652. Insight on Syria: A Quagmire of Warring Religious Groups? Why the Western View is Misguided

Author:
Melani Cammett
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
opular discourse, especially in the West, presents the current conflict in Syria as part of an age-old struggle between the Sunni and Shi’a communities within Islam. Despite the sectarian trappings of the conflict, these divisions are not the root cause of the war in Syria. Rather, the hyperpoliticization of sectarian identities is one of the outcomes—and an increasingly salient one as conflict progresses. The origins of the Syrian war lie in much more mundane political and economic grievances. Despite steady economic growth and an extensive public welfare infrastructure, the vast majority of the population was excluded from the fruits of development and faced thwarted aspirations for social mobility and political expression. Rising poverty rates, endemic corruption, the poor quality of social services and government repression—factors present to varying degrees elsewhere in the Middle East—constituted a critical background to the Syrian uprising, even if they do not predict precisely why and when individual protestors took to the streets. More proximately, the evolution of a peaceful uprising into a full-blown civil war was sparked by the regime’s response to the initial waves of demonstrations. On March 13, 2011, several teenagers in rural Dara’a in southern Syria spray-painted the slogan of the uprisings, al-sha’ab yurid isqat al-nizam, or “the people want the fall of the regime,” on walls in their town. Government security forces arrested the young men and tortured them, inciting peaceful demonstrations by family members calling for the boys’ release. Syrian forces then cracked down violently, spurring other protests across the country.
Topic:
Civil War, Religion, Sectarianism, and Violence
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

7653. What We Think about When We Think of Crime

Author:
Michelle Nicholasen
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Jean and John Comaroff, professors in the Departments of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology, divide their teaching and research between Harvard and universities in South Africa. Their scholarship has focused on colonialism and the transformation of societies in the postcolonial and late modern worlds. A recent joint effort, The Truth about Crime, documents their “existential engagement” with the interplay of crime, policing, and sovereignty, in response to what they see as a rising global preoccupation. The Comaroffs joined the academic boycott of South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s until the transition of power and formal end of apartheid in 1994. Upon their return to Cape Town, they immediately noticed an overwhelming preoccupation with crime in South Africa. Their desire to unpack this obsession, and what it says about modernity and our relationship to the state, is the subject of their book. Together, the Comaroffs consider the economic, political, and sociological shifts that underlie modern attitudes toward criminality and how these shifts have contributed to the fear of one another, to racial violence, and to public distrust in government. The Weatherhead Center spoke to the Comaroffs from their home in Cape Town, and asked them to tease out some of the complex relationships between crime and policing and how they affect the concept of citizenship.
Topic:
Crime, Politics, Democracy, and Police
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, South Africa, and North America

7654. Turnout and Voter Insecurity in the French Elections

Author:
Adrien Abecassis
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
One of the key questions in the current debate on the causes of the rise of populism is whether the economic harshness and distrust in traditional political parties increase or decrease election turnout. This question was debated in a recent roundtable discussion, organized by the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Global Populism, on the economic and cultural causes of populism’s prevalence. Would voters struck by economic shocks—those whose futures seemed to be vulnerable, and who have lost their sense of security about their own lives and that of their children’s—tend to vote to prevent this from happening? Or would their suffering cause them to retreat and withdraw from political elections? And indeed, the answer is not obvious: Luigi Guiso et al. found that economic security shocks significantly increased the likelihood of abstention, while David Autor et al. showed that economic shocks due to foreign trade competition raised—not lowered—voter turnout.
Topic:
Elections, Populism, Political Parties, and Election Interference
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7655. Absences in the “Archive of Dominicanidad”

Author:
Michelle Nicholasen
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic forces a conspicuous dividing line between black and non-black, respectively. How the island of Hispaniola came to be so racially divided, and the impact it has had on the formation of the Dominican identity is a central focus of Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation, and Archives of Contradiction by Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Lorgia García-Peña, Roy G. Clouse Associate Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. The Dominican identity is highly complex, melding various ancestries from Spanish colonials, Indigenous peoples, emancipated slaves from the seventeenth century, and Haitian blacks, who are themselves descendents of the slaves of French colonizers. Above all racial affiliations, blackness has been historically the most reviled and disputed element of Dominican diversity, where many shades of “brown” have been somehow easier to embrace. García-Peña delves into the archives and oral histories to document historic, cultural, and literary efforts to erase blackness from the national identity. As a contributor to the growing discipline of Afro-Latin American studies, her research moves beyond slavery and persecution to identify the many ways in which Dominicans are embracing their multifaceted ancestries and to document the growing awareness of social inequities for ethnic Haitians and Afro-Dominicans.
Topic:
Nationalism, Race, Immigrants, and Identities
Political Geography:
Caribbean and Dominican Republic

7656. The Cold War’s Endless Ripples

Author:
John Laidler
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
As an international historian, Faculty Associate Odd Arne Westad may be best known for bringing a fresh interpretation to the Cold War in which he argues that the era began much earlier and extended much farther than popularly thought. Those and other themes are explored in detail in a comprehensive new history of the Cold War written by Westad, the S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at Harvard Kennedy School. In The Cold War: A World History, Westad traces the broad history of the era, including what he sees as its origins and its far-flung effects. The Harvard Gazette spoke to Westad about his perspective on the Cold War, including the forces that brought about and sustained the epic confrontation, and how it continues to reverberate decades after ending.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, Military Strategy, and Leadership
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, Asia, and North America

7657. Life and Death on the US-Mexico Border

Author:
Michelle Nicholasen
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Ieva Jusionyte has always been drawn to tensions at the border. As a graduate student, she went right to the heart of the drug and human smuggling nexus of Puerto Iguazu, a town at the tri-border area of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, to research how the media reported on crime. While there, she developed a deep interest in the experiences of firefighters and rescue workers, and later, in the US, trained to become a certified emergency medical technician, paramedic, and wildland firefighter. Most recently, she embedded herself at the US-Mexico border for a year, using her technical skills to help first responders on both sides of the divide. She reasoned that firefighters and EMTs would face many of the human consequences of national security policy on a daily basis. In order to fully leverage her insights as an anthropologist, she felt she needed to participate. In Nogales, Arizona, she volunteered as an EMT with the suburban fire department, responding to 911 calls—whether it was for a wildfire or for a critically ill or wounded person. Across the border in Nogales, Mexico, she delivered first aid to injured migrants and deportees on a bench in a soup kitchen, which also served as a humanitarian and legal center. Her forthcoming book, Threshold: Emergency and Rescue on the U.S.-Mexico Border will bring together the experiences of the first responders and residents of the local border communities, to take stock of the real-life impact of US national security measures.
Topic:
Immigration, Culture, Borders, and Local
Political Geography:
United States, North America, and Mexico

7658. Women, Gender and Terrorism: Understanding Cultural and Organizational Differences

Author:
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat and Jeannette Gaudry
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Women In International Security (WIIS)
Abstract:
As the idea that women can and should play pivotal roles in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) gains greater traction, decision makers and scholars must keep striving toward a more nuanced understanding of the historical, cultural, and gendered contexts that enable extremist movements and organizations to grow.
Topic:
Political Violence, Gender Issues, Terrorism, Culture, Women, Violence, and Political Movements
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7659. Local-International Relations and the Recalibration of Peacebuilding Interventions Insights from the ‘Laboratory‘ of Bougainville and Beyond

Author:
Volkder Boege, Patricia Rinck, and Tobias Debiel
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
The report addresses the micro-level as a key dimension of post-conflict peacebuilding interventions, with a particular focus on the relationships and interactions of international and local actors. What changes do occur with regard to their perceptions, expectations, attitudes and activities in the course of interactions? Can we identify experiences and mechanisms that lead to a re-articulation of relationships and interactions and, consequently, a recalibration of the overall peacebuilding exercise, e.g. with regard to more (or less) cooperation, more (or less) mutual trust, more (or less) animosities and misunderstandings, and more (or less) legitimacy? These questions are addressed through an in-depth case study, at the core of which are narrative, problem-centred interviews with international and local actors who were and/or are engaged in the peacebuilding process on Bougainville. Bougainville is regarded as a kind of ‘laboratory’ in which international/local relations and interactions are rather direct, because national institutions play a relatively small role, and external actors are present upon invitation not only by national, but also local actors. The exploration of the Bougainville case is complemented by a plausibility probe in a case with contrasting conditions, Sierra Leone.
Topic:
Peacekeeping, Conflict, Local, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa, West Africa, and Sierra Leone

7660. Critique of ISIS’ Women Policy

Author:
Zehra Yilmaz
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
This article addresses the policy employed by ISIS with respect to women. ISIS differs from other extremist organisations in terms of its impact on women and specifically, the number of female militants it has recruited from the West. Such high numbers of women joining ISIS is striking when considered in the face of the fact that ISIS is well known to be involved in rather oppressive and barbaric practices in territories under its control. Therefore, the article examined the rea- sons that trigger women to join ISIS and the promises of ISIS for women. The present review builds the policy employed by ISIS with respect to women upon the meanings attributed to women in the founding process of a state and the man- ner in which women experience this process. Focused on the policy employed by ISIS with respect to women, the article carries on the claim of extending beyond a cultural discourse inflicted with orientalist prejudices by addressing the matter from the perspective of the state and its gender perspective in contrary to research studies approaching ISIS and women from a theological standpoint.
Topic:
Religion, Terrorism, Women, ISIS, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Global Focus