Absence Of War Research Articles

Visions of peace: Exploring how Scottish youth understand and define peace

AbstractIn this article, we report on a study that explored how young people in Scotland understand and define peace. A total of 59 young people aged 12–18, from three schools (independent, state Roman Catholic, and state non-denominational) participated in this study. The young people were asked to participate in a peace data walk and, after that, to draw or paint pictures of what peace means for them in their local community and beyond. We utilize a combination of Personal Meaning Mapping, visual content analytic procedures, and visual art coding scheme to analyse the pictures. We drew on Critical Peace Education as an overarching framework to approach data collection and on the Peace Education Curricular Analysis framework to examine the presence of positive peace elements in youth drawings/paintings. Previous research in different contexts suggests that youth find it difficult to conceptualize peace, whereas it appears to be easy to explain war and negative peace (i.e., absence of war). Previous research conducted in Scotland showed that the curriculum focused on the element of wellbeing, with many other positive peace elements being either absent or not well represented. By contrast, youth in our study showed a strong understanding of positive peace, with a particular emphasis on the following facets: peace zone, eco mind, wellbeing, peace bond, and social justice. In our conclusion, we discuss these findings in relation to Scottish education policies and ways of capitalizing on this method of engagement and overall findings to support youth learning about peace.

Peace in Plural: Towards Decolonial and Feminist Approaches to Peace

ABSTRACT This Special Issue delves into the concept of peace beyond traditional definitions, engaging with decolonial and feminist perspectives to emphasize peace not merely as the absence of war or conflict but as a broader notion encompassing the absence of all forms of violence, the presence of justice, and the pursuit of liberation. Drawing from diverse geopolitical and epistemological backgrounds, this collection of articles proposes a transition towards pluriversality, plurivocality, and pluritudes in understanding peace, aiming to disrupt disciplinary boundaries and foster a more comprehensive, nuanced, just, and liberatory understanding of peace.

A SEMIOTIC INVESTIGATION OF THE MEANINGS ABDUCTED FROM THE CHILDREN’S DRAWINGS OF WAR: STORYTELLING THROUGH DRAWINGS

Drawing is a vital tool used in understanding people, especially children, with the use of visual media as a means of expressing their emotions, as well as the use of different forms of images that emerge on a drawing surface. Therefore, it is significant to understand that children can use different forms of drawing media to articulate their inner feelings as well as making their thoughts understandable to others. This study, based on the belief that the art works of child survivors furnish materials for analysis, focuses on meaning-making of the drawings of the child survivors of war through semiotics investigation, thereby exposing the stories of war through the lens of the child survivors. This made use an analytical research design to investigate the poster narratives drawn by the participants who were living in the two temporary shelters of Marawi last September 2020. The researcher had meaningful meaning-making of the drawings and the findings of the study include: conceptualization of the masjid (mosque) as a sanctuary during war; definition of religion as a wellspring of resiliency, demarking peace as the absence of war, and highlighting the role of kambangsa (clanship) amidst danger, and from all of these, a grand narrative of the child survivors of Marawi Siege was written. The meanings abducted from the drawings led to the narratives of the child-survivors- narratives that may have been left unspoken and unheard after all these years of trying to live a normal life as young, gentle and innocent children of the city. This supported the claims that children are thinkers with knowledge of their own sensations, thoughts, beliefs and other mental states. Finally, this study implied that drawings are rich sources for semiotic discourse despite the limitations at hand.

War and Peace in Game of Thrones as An Epic Narrative

This study aims to examine the war and peace themes in the TV series Game of Thrones, which can be considered as an epic a popular culture narrative. Epics’ themes are of war, adventure and chivalry and they reproduce discourse on values, morality, war and peace though one or more protagonists. Epics, traditionally, construct war discourse by concepts like just war, war ethics and honor, and peace discourse by absence of war. In this study, Game of Thrones, has been examined in terms of war and peace themes via Thematic Analysis. Results revealed that Game of Thrones, somewhat differs from traditional epic narratives. Although classical themes like “just war discourse” pops on and off throughout the show, it is also emphasizes that war is not a glorious act. Showing conflicting perspectives of the warring parties, narrative of the show refutes many narratives that serves as justification of war. Moreover, in Game of Thrones universe, peace is not built on the absence of war. Narrative emphasized that non-conflict is not sufficient but a just administration is necessary for peace. In this context, peacebuilding in the Game of Thrones manifests itself in a way that converges with Galtung's conceptualization of peace.

“Dirty War: Claudia Jones and Opposition to the Indochina War”

Claudia Jones was an advocate of “positive peace.” Positive peace, as it was explained by Johan Goltung, is “the absence of structural violence” which involves the “egalitarian distribution of power and resources.” Positive peace is not just the absence of war and violence (defined as negative peace), but it also includes justice for all people and “the elimination of the root causes of war, violence, and injustice” and a concerted and unified effort to create and uphold a just society. For Jones, this could only be achieved under socialism. She argued that capitalism fomented war, colonialism, and imperialism and it used state violence to secure control over resources and cheap labor. The advent of the Cold War increased the anxiety of individuals like Jones who feared that it made hot war a likely eventuality. Jones argued that the US commitment to containment meant policing the poor and the “darker side of the color line.” She theorized a notion of peace that proposed the destruction of capitalism and the structures it relied on to maintain power; this included racism, sexism, and the prevention of labor organization. Jones was also an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist and she recognized that US containment policy was merely a re-branding of both. Though Jones died before the US escalated conflict in Vietnam, she watched events in Indochina with trepidation and she argued that the US was heading toward war there.

Predicting Tuberculosis Incidence and Its Trend in Tigray, Ethiopia: A Reality-Counterfactual Modeling Approach.

The Tigray region of Ethiopia, which has been affected by civil war from 2020 to 2022, is facing an increase in tuberculosis in the damaged health system. Our study employed mathematical modeling to predict the incidence of tuberculosis and its trends during the war and in the post-conflict setting of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. We predicted the incidence of tuberculosis from 2020 to 2025 in Tigray using the SEIRD model in the context of the recent war and compared it with its counterfactual trend in the absence of war. The counterfactual trend was forecasted using an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model for stationary time-series data. We performed rolling origin cross-validation for ARIMA and sensitivity analysis for the SEIRD model. The initial tuberculosis data and model parameters were obtained from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the literature, respectively. Between 2000 and 2017, the incidence of tuberculosis in Tigray decreased at an annual rate of 3.0%. Shortly before the war, the incidence of tuberculosis in the region was 178 per 100,000 people. In a counterfactual scenario where there was no war, the incidence was projected to decrease to 144.3 in 2022 and 126.3 in 2025. However, owing to the war and siege, the SEIRD-projected incidence of tuberculosis would have increased to 965.5 (95% CI: 958.5-972.7) in 2022 and 372.4 (95% CI: 367.7-376.6) in 2025. Over 800 cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 people were attributed to the war in 2022. In the postwar period, the incidence is projected to decrease by 30% by 2023. The Tigray War reversed a two-decade decline in tuberculosis cases, causing a five-fold increase compared to the no-war scenario. Urgent interventions are needed to support tuberculosis prevention, testing, and treatment, particularly in key and vulnerable populations.

Religious Harmony in India: Exploring the Enlightened Approaches of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Wahiduddin Khan

Throughout multi-religious societies, living peacefully and maintaining harmony and integrity are key requirements. Peace is not merely the absence of war; it has much more socio-psychic connotations that involve all aspects of holistic existence. Religious harmony simply means the peaceful coexistence of different religions and their followers. Peace and religious harmony in India have been topics of great significance due to the country's diverse religious landscape. The nation's history has had some occasions for racial struggle and religious conflict. But there have also been people from multiple religions throughout history who have worked continuously to promote peace and harmony by encouraging acceptance and understanding of those of various faiths. Foremost among these stalwart figures are Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, whose progressive outlooks had a profound effect on India's religious structure. Sir Syed's efforts were rooted in modern education, so he advocated that "Hindus and Muslims are two eyes of the beautiful bride that is Hindustan. Weakness in any one of them will spoil the beauty of the bride". Maulana Wahiduddin Khan's approach is deeply spiritual in nature and his approach to peace and religious harmony was rooted in a reinterpretation of Islamic teachings and an emphasis on dialogue, understanding, and non-violence. This paper will explore the various ideas encompassed by both stalwarts, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, regarding religious harmony and the unique approaches utilized by them in order to promote mutual understanding among the religious diversity in India.

Economic Costs of Civil Conflicts: The Case of Burundi

ABSTRACT This study examines the effects of civil conflicts in Burundi on its economic performance. The analysis of the structural effects using a structural VAR model points to the long-lasting effects of a civil conflict shock on economic growth in Burundi. After 10 years, the effect on economic growth is still noticeable. The cumulative effect of a civil conflict shock is found to be a 7.1% decrease in economic growth over a horizon of 10 years. Using the Synthetic Control method, estimates indicate that the Burundian civil war led to an average GDP per capita decline of approximately 138 dollars per annum, compared to what it would have been in the absence of war. The average annual loss as a percentage of the counterfactual GDP per capita is 34%. The total monetary cost of the war during this period is estimated at USD 1514 per person and almost 10 billion USD for the entire country. The estimated effects are robust to placebo checks conducted. We compare these results with costs of conflict in other countries to better understand the relative financial burden of the civil war. The study highlights the need to consolidate peace to achieve long-term economic development in Burundi.

A Normative and conceptual study of peace after the Second World War in light of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the United Nations

The concept of peace is a source of much debate in the history of international law, and scholars have discussed it from different perspectives. State's consent formed the basis for the legal order prior to the Second World War. However, after the Second World War, peace requirements altered the order by imposing certain obligations upon States. These obligations are essential for universal peace, regardless of states' consent. Among these requirements, the salient sample is the prohibition of waging war, which was criminalized for the first time by the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals. As part of the process of pursuing lasting peace the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations is a hallmark. The Charter outlined a new vision of peace, coupled with retaining the classic definition of peace as the absence of war. There are two characteristics of the Charter's peace; it is manifested in a particular form with a definite connotation. In terms of the form, certain articles of the Charter suggest that the form is the relationship between the members of the United Nations and that the connotation is the implementation of human rights. Charter law pledges States, individually and collectively, to observe human rights both at the domestic and international levels, and this understanding of peace has affected the structure of international law.

David G. Firth. Joshua

David G. Firth. <i>Joshua</i>

“On becoming a peacebuilder”: narratives of the Grade 10 learners

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how learners view peace and their role in peacebuilding. Peace is widely perceived as the absence of war and violence (Castro and Galace, 2010). The literature revealed that youths play an active role in peacebuilding. This study was designed to look into the journey of Grade 10 learners to becoming peacebuilders. Specifically, this sought answers to the following questions: What are the perceptions of the Grade 10 learners of peace? How do the Grade 10 learners contribute to peacebuilding? What are the learners’ dreams and aspirations for a culture of peace? Design/methodology/approach The research captured stories of the Grade 10 learners of a Filipino-Chinese school in Iloilo City who participated in the study voluntarily. The learners wrote an essay in one of their reflection sessions in social studies class completing the following phrases: Peace is …; I am a Peacebuilder …; My dreams and aspirations for a culture of peace …. The data gathered were analyzed following Creswell’s framework in data analysis in qualitative research which suggests a linear, hierarchical approach. The themes generated were interpreted as the final process of the data analysis. Findings Majority of the participants perceived peace positively rather than merely an absence of war. Peace means freedom. Moreover, peace improves society and brings in a new period of progress. Learners across cultures have common views of peace, and they believed that peacebuilding has to begin in themselves. Through positive action such as setting as a good example and influencing others to do the same, the learners contribute to peacebuilding. In times of conflict and misunderstanding, they act as agents of peace by being a mediator. During crisis in the community, they extended their helping hands to the needy wholeheartedly. Research limitations/implications Consistent with the prevailing views of peace, learners perceived peace positively and negatively. It is interesting to note that most participants had a positive perception of peace, which demonstrated a more profound conception of the topic. Their broader perspectives on peace may have been influenced by the author, who taught the participants for two years and who began as a peace advocate and incorporated peace ideas into class discussions in some instances. The findings from this study might only be the tip of the iceberg and far from being definitive given the small number of participants and the researcher’s relationship with them, which may have impacted their responses and created some concerns about authenticity and anonymity. Practical implications This study upheld the claim of Gandhi that youths are agents of positive change (Del Felice and Wisler, 2007). Young people are potential peacebuilders. This study provided encouragement for the truth that we should not undervalue youth’s ability to effect change. This can prompt greater discussion among scholars about peace in general inside the group, which might be viewed as being ignored on peace studies. Social implications The participants’ dreams and aspirations for a culture of peace went beyond just improving their own lives. They shared Gandhi and Rizal’s aspirations for a better world and a habitable Philippines. Their narratives exhibited that they wished for a common good, which was uplifting. Their expectations and aspirations might have varied because of their economic situation and cultural orientation. Originality/value Literatures revealed that youths play an active role in peacebuilding. In school, for instance, Jabor (2017) concluded that students are enablers and not only the prime recipients of peace process. In a bigger context, Del Felice and Wisler (2007) illustrated in their study how the youths spearheaded various organizations for the benefit of humanity. Despite the many attestations, the contributions of the youth to peacebuilding are still deemed understudied. Most of the studies were based on the dichotomous view of the youth: victims and perpetrators of violence (UNOY Peacebuilder, 2015).

The impact of the Russian-Ukraine war on the stock market: a causal analysis

ABSTRACT The study assumes the causal effects of the Russian-Ukraine war on the Moscow Exchange index based on forecasting the counterfactual market response. The findings suggest that the Ukraine war has a detrimental impact on the index; the effects are especially more pronounced at the beginning of the war. The results indicate a rapid divergence from counterfactual predictions and the actual stock index was consistently lower than would have been expected in the absence of war. The two curves suggest a reconvening pattern in the stock market when the stock market resumes its activities. The estimate of the Moscow Exchange index decline following the conflict and reaching the bottom is shown in the point-wise causal effect. The cumulative causal effect adds up to the causal effect in the course of time. In relative terms, the response variable decreased by −51%. This means that the negative impact observed during the intervention period is statistically significant. The diverse economic sectors should have access to market information and pay close attention to the effects of the conflict on the stock market. Investment decisions and policy adjustments should be based on the evolution and changes in the conflict.

Pluralism, temporality and affect – methodological challenges of making peace researchable

ABSTRACT Scholarly debates about how we conceptualise, theorise and measure peace have recently intensified, yet exactly how peace scholars translate these theoretical innovations into concrete methodological tools and practices is less clear. We argue that pluralism, temporality and the role of affect are three recent focal points in current scholarly debates that aim to further our conceptual understanding of peace. Taking these theoretical developments seriously requires us to consider our methodological tools to approach each one, but these concepts also point to methodological issues on their own. This special issue aims to investigate our assumptions about peace, and how these in turn shape the way we approach the study of peace, in terms of both research design and data collection as well as in the process of writing up and disseminating findings, all departing from these three specific challenges. As such, this special issue contributes to efforts of making peace beyond the absence of war more researchable.

Parti liderinin mücadelesi: David Hare’ın Savaşın Yokluğunda adlı oyununda değişim olasılığı

David Hare’s The Absence of War (1993) deals with the period before an early general election in Britain and the defeat of the Labour Party, which is led by George Jones, to the Conservative Party. Hare presents George Jones as a weak leader who cannot actively take part in the policy making process because he is constantly controlled by the members of his advisory committee who prevent George from making his own statements before the public and while speaking to the media by using the established traditions in the party system. Through George, Hare makes references to Neil Kinnock who was the leader of the Labour Party between 1983-1992 and aimed to change the social and economic policies of the Party, but he resigned after the defeat in the 1992 general election. The major aim of this paper is to argue that Hare illustrates, and in a way comments on, Kinnock’s leadership through that of George’s in the play, so he presents a historical period in British politics through a fictional character. In this sense, Hare demonstrates that both leaders of the Labour Party aim to reform the party; however, both encounter resistance; while George is silenced by his advisory committee, Kinnock is accused of changing the ideological and economic basis of the party. Moreover, it will be displayed that although both leaders resign before winning a general election, they struggle to introduce revolutionary changes to the traditional system in the Party in order to appeal to voters.

Divergent Perceptions of Peace in Post-Conflict Societies: Insights from Sri Lanka

Research on postwar peace focuses primarily on how elites and institutions can prevent relapse into civil war. In line with this special issue’s focus on citizens’ experiences, we take a micro-level approach to explore peace beyond the absence of war. We investigate how members of opposing sides experience peace a decade after a decisive victory of the majority. Using original survey data from a representative sample of 2000 respondents in 2018 Sri Lanka, we find that even one decade after the conflict members of the Sinhalese winning majority are consistently more likely to report improvements in peace than Tamils, who were represented by the defeated minority. But the benefit of a “victor’s peace” does not seem to translate into an optimistic outlook of the victorious group, nor does it increase people’s endorsement for repressive state measures. Despite the drastically improved physical security for the defeated ethnic minority since the war, they experience a deterioration in other dimensions of peace. Our findings have important implications for a deeper understanding of variations in peace and reconciliation processes.

Աշխարհի ու Հայաստանի միգրացիոն հոսքերը ռուս-ուկրաինական հակամարտության համապատկերում/Migration Flows of the World and Armenia in the Context of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

The overall look at human history proves that wars are destructive for all parties. War destroys everything on its path: human lives, economic systems and infrastructure, social capital. In fact, estimating the economic “price” of war is quite difficult, as it is necessary to understand how much the country's income would be in the absence of war. A key pillar of the economic consequences of the war is the resulting migration crisis in the conflicting countries, the extent of its spread throughout the world. In this regard, the Russian-Ukrainian war, which began on February 24, 2022, is transforming migration processes and the situation both around the world and in Armenia.

David Hare's The Absence of War: Still Writing "Left-Handedly" in an Age Deprived of Ideology

British political drama in the 1990s was observed to be concerned more with the global issues than with the state of the nation. The repercussions of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet states, the rise of the United States as the ultimate world power as well as the prevalence of the rightist politics at home were widely handled in the political plays of this period. In this decade, the boundaries between the Right and the Left appeared to be indistinct; therefore, British political drama, which was originally leftist, was assumed to be superannuated. Yet, the established political dramatists together with the new generation of playwrights continued writing politically, though in a different manner, and contributed a lot to the development of political drama. David Hare, one of the leading political playwrights, wrote The Absence of War in 1993 and questioned the very institution of leftist ideology in Britain, Labour Party. However, what Hare critically approached in the play was not leftism itself but the Labour’s politics tainted by rightist values. Hence, though criticising the Labour and though writing in an age when ideologies were becoming steadily less effective, Hare preserved his leftist stance. Within this context, this study aims to display how Hare in The Absence of War queries and asks for the reformation of the conservative traces in Labour Party.

Long-Term Effects of Yugoslav War

ABSTRACT We examine the long-term effects of civil war in former Yugoslavia on economic growth and development. To this end, we employ the synthetic control methodology, and estimate the missing counterfactual scenario for the long-run growth and development of former Yugoslav republics, in the absence of the civil war by matching their growth and development characteristics with non-Yugoslav countries at the similar stages of development. The results suggest that the civil war led to unprecedented long-run growth and development losses. In the absence of the war, per capita income levels of former Yugoslav republics would improve markedly with notable differences in the magnitude of the growth and development gains across the affected countries. The estimated effects of the civil war are robust to a large number of placebo checks, and falsification-based random permutation tests. The results show that not a single former Yugoslav republic down to the present day has achieved the level of per capita income predicted by their synthetic control groups in the years preceding the civil war. Our results show that the Yugoslav civil war appears to be a permanent institutional shock with long-lasting implications for economic growth and development.

Poetry and the Camp: Epiphanic Witness and Ecstatic Cry in the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1895–98

Poetry and the Camp: Epiphanic Witness and Ecstatic Cry in the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1895–98

Swords into Plowshares as a Peace Challenge: Peace Discourse in Isaiah 2 and the Tonghak Peasant Rebellion

AbstractThis article challenges our usual concept of peace as the absence of war by examining its meaning in two religions: Tonghak and Christianity. The ultimate peace imagined in the biblical book of Isaiah involves turning swords into plowshares. But Isaiah also saw that peace without social justice is meaningless, which may lead to turning plowshares into swords. In the unsuccessful Tonghak Peasant Rebellion (1894–1895) in Korea, peasants used farm implements to fight for true peace by resisting the oppression to which they were subjected. The seeming differences between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King also turn on questions of strategy in the face of overwhelming oppression. Those civil rights leaders were both pragmatic in their pursuit of strategic goals and not as far apart in their thinking as some have portrayed them. In the end, we find a convergence in Tonghak’s visionary thinking that shaped the future of East Asia, the call for global support in the success of the civil rights movement, and the importance of aid from a foreign power (Persia) in fostering eschatological hope in Isaiah’s vision of a peaceful and just future.