Discussion Of Conflict Research Articles

‘Killing is our business and business is good’: The evolution of ‘war managerialism’ from body counts to counterinsurgency

Managerialism versus professionalism is a central axis of conflict across many occupations. ‘The profession of arms’ is no exception. This article explores the contested yet symbiotic relationship of management and the military via a discussion of the Vietnam conflict and contemporary debates over restructuring the US military to fight so-called ‘New Wars’. It portrays a complex picture of the organization and measurement of destruction, arguing that managerialism has long been an important ideological element of civilian and military practice. While management systems such as the infamous ‘measurements of progress’ in the Vietnam War were practically dysfunctional, they were effective up to a point in their managerialist goal of portraying civilian and military organizations as effective, evidence-based, progressive and ethical. This logic also pertains to contemporary debates over ‘progress’, and its measurement in the Iraq and Afghanistan counterinsurgencies and the campaign against Isil. Despite its practical limitations, managerialism is highly prevalent as ideology in warfare, fixating on tactical and operational levels, thereby excluding broader strategic, political or ethical discussions. ‘Progress’ and its mismeasurement in Vietnam and the New Wars are therefore best understood not simply as reasons for military and civilian failures in prolonged and inconclusive conflicts but as evidence of the success of managerialism in restricting public scrutiny and accountability of the business of war.

ДОБЫВАЮЩИЕ КОМПАНИИ И МЕСТНЫЕ СООБЩЕСТВА: СОЦИАЛЬНОЕ ПАРТНЕРСТВО КАК ОСНОВА БЕСКОНФЛИКТНОГО РАЗВИТИЯ (на примере провинции Бату Хиджау, Индонезия). Рецензия: Enacting the Corporation: an American Mining Firm in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia by Marina Welker. Berkeley – Los-Angeles – London: University of California Press, 2014. 289 p.

<p>The articlerepresents a review of the monograph by American anthropologist Marina Welker (Cornell University,USA), dedicated to the socioanthropological study of the relationship of the American industrial corporation Newmont leading mineral extraction on Sambava island (Indonesia), with the local population communities. Based on results of two-year field work, the author analyzes the most important aspects in terms of social tension in areas of intensive mining, the main components of the conflict discourse around the resource rent extraction and distribution problems, and the experience of the American corporation for the normalization of relations with local communities. The book under review is of considerable interest from the point of view of development in the Russian practice of socio-anthropological research in the problem field extractivism, its social and environmental development impact. This review is available to Russian-speaking reader for the first time. Previously, it has been published twicein foreign scientific journals in English [1] and Estonian [2]. </p>

Cinematic Search for Identity in the Shade of Turkey’s 1960 Coup: The Social Realism Debate and The Hope

When the Turkish army seized power on May 27th, 1960, a new democratic constitution was carried into effect. The positive atmosphere created by the 1961 constitution quickly showed its effects on political balances in the parliament and it became difficult for one single party to come into power, which strengthened the multi-party-system. The freedom initiative created by 1961’s constitution had a direct effect on the rise of public opposition. Filmmakers, who generally steered clear from the discussion of social problems and conflicts until 1960, started to produce movies questioning conflicts in political, social and cultural life for the first time and discussions about the “Social Realism” movement in the ensuing films arose in cinematic circles in Turkey. At the same time, the “regional managers” emerged, and movies in line with demands of this system started to be produced. The Hope (Umut), produced by Yılmaz Güney in 1970, rang in a new era in Turkish cinema, because it differed from other movies previously made in its cinematic language, expression, and use of actors and settings. The aim of this study is to mention the reality discussions in Turkish cinema and outline the political facts which initiated this expression leading up to the film Umut (The Hope, directed by Yılmaz Güney), which has been accepted as the most distinctive social realist movie in Turkey.

The role of collective memory in protracted conflict

This paper examines the role of interpretations of historical events when discussing the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, by those with a lived experience of it. The research literature relating to representations of collective memory and perceived intractable conflict is presented before discussing how a theoretical lens of dialogicality, through exploring the role of themata, can add to the discussion. Open-ended depth interviews with both Palestinians and Jewish Israelis revealed historical narratives without any direct questioning concerning this. Subsequent thematic analysis demonstrated the significance of these to justify and legitimise their positioning frameworks in relation to both their own and the others group's perspectives. The subsequent discussion examines how the quoted examples of perceived interpretations of the past can offer an understanding of foundational themes that remain omnipresent, yet not exclusive. Social representations of collective memories can play a significant role in the discussion of protracted conflict where frozen representations of the past can act as barriers to change, yet as will be discussed, resistance to them can lead to new perspectives that herald a shift away from a perceived intractability towards an alternative, more collaboratively imagined future.

Allison K. Shutt. Manners Make a Nation: Racial Etiquette in Southern Rhodesia, 1910–1963.

Bridging the gap between the history of respectability politics and the growing field of the history of emotions, Allison K. Shutt’s Manners Make a Nation: Racial Etiquette in Southern Rhodesia, 1910–1963 carves out a new path. She mined colonial archives, personal correspondences, and newspaper articles to identify key moments when government officials, settlers, African elites, and nationalists in Southern Rhodesia employed the concept of what Shutt calls “racial etiquette” to negotiate the terms of colonialism between 1910 and 1963. While racial etiquette more often than not implied the racist, paternalist, and masculinist ethos of white settler society, Shutt reveals the ever-expanding cracks in its façade. The book consists of six main chapters and an introduction. Chapter 1 provides the historical framework for legal debates over “insolence” and establishes the book’s central narrative: that prevailing ideas about racial etiquette shifted with the rise of nationalism after World War II. In chapter 2, Shutt closely analyzes two cases of minor disputes over manners from the 1930s: one that arose when a government official knocked the hat off an African urban elite man, the other when the wife of an officer interfered with the work of a junior official to cull African-owned cattle herds. The two cases provide a rich and nuanced glimpse into colonial society and the role of hats, gestures, glances, and interpersonal space in shaping racial etiquette. This chapter vividly illustrates that racial etiquette in Southern Rhodesia was a “work in progress” involving arbitrations over race, gender, class, and dignity. Chapter 3 offers a unique look at the tensions that arose when older white settlers sought to induct “newcomers” into local rules of racial etiquette, sometimes unsuccessfully. This chapter offers a brief but important look at cleavages in Southern Rhodesia’s white society during the 1940s and 1950s. Debates about racial etiquette moved into a more public and political space during the 1950s, the focus of chapters 4 and 5. Here, Shutt argues that the establishment of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953 sparked new debates in which African nationalists demanded more respect from whites. Ultimately, Africans and their allies launched a formal “courtesy campaign” during the early 1960s that highlighted the tensions around desegregation of public places. Shutt’s discussion of conflicts over integration at municipal swimming pools in chapter 5 is particularly rich in identifying the racialized and sexualized undertones of white fears about desegregation. Chapter 6, which serves as a sort of epilogue in lieu of a conclusion, briefly addresses the impact of these debates about manners in the early 1960s prior to the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) by the white Rhodesian government in 1965.

Discourses in conflict: resource inequality, class warfare and home repossessions

ABSTRACTThe topic of this paper is an ongoing discursive conflict which has arisen in Spain around home repossession and home evictions, understood here as part of a more general class warfare waged by the financial elites on the popular classes. Firmly grounded in political economy and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), it examines attempts by the governing Partido Popular to represent as undemocratic a particular kind of protest action called escraches, which have been carried out by the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, an organization which defends the rights of evictees. The key argument in this paper is that resource inequality, endemic to capitalism, has been aggravated and intensified during the current economic crisis, and that there is the need for more CDA research which is grounded in political economy to explore how events on the ground are mediated by discourses in conflict.

'How did you find the argument?': Conflicting discourses in a master's dissertation tutorial

This paper discusses feedback for developing L2 writing. It presents data from a serendipitous audio-recording of one L2 master's student's tutorial with her dissertation supervisor at a UK university, which is extracted from a 13-month linguistic ethnography. Following 'academic literacies' scholars, I view the tutorial as a 'literacy event' (Heath, 1982: 83), which, I argue, takes place in a 'backstage' (Goffman, 1959) social learning space where student–teacher power relations and identities may be asymmetrical, contested, and fluid. In line with the tenets of linguistic ethnography (Copland and Creese, 2015: 13), the discourse analysis of the tutorial considers how the interaction here is 'embedded in wider social contexts and structures'. I identify dominant institutional discourses and discuss how these create power relations that interact with language, identities, and agency in the student's experience. These data are triangulated with post-recall interviews with the two participants, the dissertation draft with the lecturer's written feedback, the summative feedback, and course documents. Findings demonstrate that, while the student was interested in developing argumentation, the supervisor focused on other aspects. I relate this to recent literature on knowledge transformation and argumentation in academic writing, and discuss its implications for L2 master's students by drawing on Bourdieu's notion of 'right to speak' (1991).

Leda or Living Doll? Women as Dolls in Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop

This article will use the figure of the doll to consider female identity and performativity in Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop (1967). It will build upon recent Gothic criticism from Andrew Hock Soon Ng’s Women and Domestic Space in Contemporary Gothic Narratives: The House as Subject (2015), which defines the domestic space in this novel as a theatre box that reduces its occupants to actors that must execute the correct gender performativity at all times. Specifically, it will use a doll motif to explore the effect of this demand on the Gothic heroine who is demoted to the status of a silent and submissive doll-like entity. Firstly, it will discuss the complex formation of female identity and the various elements that influence the process. Secondly, it will analyze the female subject’s struggle for control of her identity and autonomy against a villainous patriarch, which is a common theme in many classic and contemporary Gothic narratives. Finally, it will evaluate how the doll and heroine analogy epitomizes the many components of female identity and performativity as well as the repression of the Gothic heroine by outside forces through its discussion of the relentless conflict between Melanie and Uncle Philip.

Bodies count: the politics and practices of war and violent death data

In discussions of conflict, war and political violence, dead bodies count. Although the politics and practices associated with the collection of violent-death data are seldom subject to critical examination, they are crucial to how scholars and practitioners think about how and why conflict and violence erupt. Knowledge about conflict deaths – the who, what, where, when, why and how – is a form of expertise, created, disseminated and used by different agents. This article highlights the ways in which body counts are deployed as social facts and forms of knowledge that are used to shape and influence policies and practices associated with armed conflict. It traces the way in which conflict-death data emerged, and then examines critically some of the practices and assumptions of data collection to shed light on how claims to expertise are enacted and on how the public arena connects (or not) with scholarly conflict expertise.

Public Networked Discourses in the Ukraine-Russia Conflict: ‘Patriotic Hackers’ and Digital Populism

This paper explores the self-presentation and online discursive practices of grass- roots hacker collectives on both sides of the Ukraine-Russia conflict within a larger geopolitical climate of a contested globalisation agenda and a growing fear of cyber warfare. Both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian hacker groups engage in DDoS attacks, malware distribution and leaking stolen information from the opposing side. They also use social media to enter the broader political discourse around the conflict. The paper analyses the Twitter posts of both collectives to reveal key modes of online practices and key discursive themes in the context of the conflict, such as political activism, information warfare, hacker ethics and patriotism. The study elucidates how these groups use their social media presence to construct a ‘patriotic hacker’ identity for themselves, to delegitimise their opponents and ultimately, to connect to the broader populist dis- course, where issues of patriotism, sovereignty and nationhood are contested.

Public Networked Discourses in the Ukraine-Russia Conflict: ‘Patriotic Hackers’ and Digital Populism

This paper explores the self-presentation and online discursive practices of grassroots hacker collectives on both sides of the Ukraine-Russia conflict within a larger geopolitical climate of a contested globalisation agenda and a growing fear of cyber warfare. Both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian hacker groups engage in DDoS attacks, malware distribution and leaking stolen information from the opposing side. They also use social media to enter the broader political discourse around the conflict. The paper analyses the Twitter posts of both collectives to reveal key modes of online practices and key discursive themes in the context of the conflict, such as political activism, information warfare, hacker ethics and patriotism. The study elucidates how these groups use their social media presence to construct a ‘patriotic hacker’ identity for themselves, to delegitimise their opponents and ultimately, to connect to the broader populist discourse, where issues of patriotism, sovereignty and nationhood are contested.

Наступательный и оборонительный религиозный конфликт: геополитическая перспектива

The discussion of the offensive religious conflict in this paper emphasizes on the fact that those regional groups are offensive only because of their dissatisfaction with the status quo and their ability of resorting to force. The purpose of provoking conflict is the pursuit of absolute security as well as maximized benefit in fighting for religious survival space. And the ultimate goal of defensive religious conflict is whether or not to maintain a relatively safe independent development of their own state. The concern about the intentions, abilities and consequences of religious confrontation is the attempt to transform the international relations theory from political realism to religious realism. In the geopolitical sense, if there is no strong enough external force to dominate or intervene, or effective balance of consensus mechanism, then the regional advantageous religious power that are not satisfied with the status quo and have a certain degree of violent may ensure their living space and maximize their religious power through active “self-help”. And the religious conflict of the purpose of obtaining a relatively safe living space is essentially a respect for the idea that the various religious forces can coexist in the same region.

Discussions of Social Class, Discrimination and Class Conflict in The Cherry Orchard and Look Back in Anger

Discussions of Social Class, Discrimination and Class Conflict in The Cherry Orchard and Look Back in Anger

Communication Strategies in Conflict Discourse: Cross-cultural Experimental Research

The paper discusses the choices of communication strategies of confrontation, distancing and cooperation in conflict discourse made by Russian and American university students. The experimental study revealed that both Russian and American male students tend to be more aggressive than females, and that both Russian and American respondents tend to choose the strategy of confrontation when they start the conversation reacting to non-verbal triggers, while in reacting to verbal triggers most respondents chose the strategies of cooperation or distancing. The paper also discusses the language units used by the four groups of students for expressing confrontation.

Borders, conflict and security

PurposeBorder environments differ as foci for conflict discourse. While classic realist theories are used to account for mechanisms of securitized borders, socially oriented theories are often invoked to characterize relaxed borders. This distinguishing pattern regarding securitization reflects a deeply rooted focus on idealized borders, based on implicit expectations that relaxed borders are a viable option and goal for all. This orientation is prone to mistaken assumptions regarding local, national and regional interests and ultimately threatens delicately balanced states of stability. This paper aims to question this somewhat simplified categorization and posit that securitized borders are longstanding realities which warrant more complex theoretical conceptualization.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is based on documentary study and qualitative field research, mapping and evaluating Israel–Jordan cross-border interactions conducted during 2006-2014. Local civilian interactions were studied using three tools: interviews, non-participant observations and a sector-based analysis of original and secondary sources. In the course of research, many tours and observations of the border region were conducted, and key actors in Israel and Jordan were interviewed: entrepreneurs, local residents, local and national government officials, security personnel and representatives of non-governmental organizations involved in the administration and funding of normalization-promoting initiatives.FindingsIn light of internal and external security threats which challenge states and border regions in conflict environments and in normalized settings, there is increasing value in recognizing multi-level power relations (“bringing the state back in”) that design, inhibit and ultimately control the inevitability, circumstance and social–political effectivity of any cross-border interaction. Cross-border cooperation (CBC), which evolves gradually, monitored by the border regime and reflecting actual levels of inter-state political dialogue, is a slower yet safer option and a more realistic expectation for CBC, especially in regions of minimal communication between cross-border neighbors. In the backdrop of the Middle East turmoil, Israel and Jordan mark 20 years of peaceful relations, enjoying stability based on shared political and security interests, yet displaying no apparent tendency toward increased cross-border interaction. Given the stark differences in regimes and ongoing regional unrest, this securitized border fulfills local and regional needs and is far from a temporary “second-best” reality.Originality/valueThe analysis is based on original fieldwork and documentary study, mapping and evaluating Israel–Jordan cross-border interactions conducted during 2006-2014.

Unsettled: A Global Study of Settlements in Occupied Territories

This Article provides the first comprehensive, global examination of state and international practice bearing on Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which provides that an “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” This provision is a staple of legal and diplomatic international discussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and serves as the basis for criticism of Israeli settlement policy. Despite its frequent invocation in the Israeli context, scholars have never examined – or even considered – how the norm has been interpreted and applied in any other occupation context in the post-WWII era. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) influential Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law lists 107 instances of national practice and UN practice applying or interpreting the prohibition, and all but two relate to Israel. Many questions exist about the scope and application of Art. 49(6)’s prohibition on “transfer,” but they have generally been answered on purely theoretically. To better understand what Art. 49(6) does in fact demand, this Article closely examines its application in all other cases in which it could apply. Many of the settlement enterprises studied in this Article have never been discussed or documented. All of these situations involved the movement of settlers into the occupied territory, in numbers ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands. Indeed, perhaps every prolonged occupation of contiguous habitable territory has resulted in significant settlement activity.Clear patterns emerge from this systematic study of state practice. Strikingly, the state practice paints a picture that is significantly inconsistent with the prior conventional wisdom concerning Art. 49(6). First, the migration of people into occupied territory is a near-ubiquitous feature of extended belligerent occupations. Second, no occupying power has ever taken any measures to discourage or prevent such settlement activity, nor has any occupying power ever expressed opinio juris suggesting that it is bound to do so. Third, and perhaps most strikingly, in none of these situations have the international community or international organizations described the migration of persons into the occupied territory as a violation of Art. 49(6). Even in the rare cases in which such policies have met with international criticism, it has not been in legal terms. This suggests that the level of direct state involvement in “transfer” required to constitute an Art. 49(6) violation may be significantly greater than previously thought. Finally, neither international political bodies nor the new governments of previously occupied territories have ever embraced the removal of illegally transferred civilian settlers as an appropriate remedy.The deeper understanding – based on a systematic survey of all available state practice – of the prohibition on settlements should inform legal discussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict, including potential investigations into such activity by the International Criminal Court. More broadly, the new understanding of Art. 49(6) developed here can also shed significant light on the proper treatment of several ongoing occupations, from Western Sahara and Northern Cyprus, to the Russian occupations of Ukraine and Georgia, whose settlement policies this Article is the first to document.

Mexican American adolescent couples' vulnerability for observed negativity and physical violence: Pregnancy and acculturation mismatch

Stress and vulnerability for dating violence may be heightened among acculturating Mexican American (MA) adolescents, and MA adolescent parents, because of differing cultural values and norms within romantic relationships. We hypothesized, in a sample of MA heterosexual couples (N = 30, 15–17 years), that: 1) within-couple level acculturation discrepancies, and pregnancy/parenting, would predict physical violence perpetration, and 2) that this association would have an indirect effect through couple-level negativity during an observed dyadic video-taped discussion of conflict. Using a path model we found that pregnant/parenting adolescents (B = .37, SE = .16, p = .002), and couples with greater acculturation mismatch resulted in greater couple negativity (B = .16, SE = .06, p = .01), which was associated with self-reported physical violence perpetration (B = .41, SE = .22, p = .02; indirect effect, B = .15, SE = .07, p = .03). Within-couple acculturation discrepancies and pregnancy/parenting may be a pathway to dating violence through poor communication skills around conflict for MA youth. Support services that strengthen communication skills, particularly for pregnant/parenting couples, are recommended.

Perspective-taking influences autonomic attunement between partners during discussion of conflict

This study investigated the effects of dispositional and experimentally induced perspective-taking (PT) on physiological attunement between romantic partners during a conflict resolution task. Young adult couples ( N = 103 dyads) rated their trait PT 1 week prior to participating in a conflict resolution session with their romantic partner. Immediately before the conflict task, participants were given one of the following three instructions: to take their partner’s perspective (PT condition), to approach the conflict mindfully (mindfulness condition), or to focus on their own perspective regarding the conflict (control condition). Participants provided four saliva samples over the course of the laboratory session, and the samples were assayed for alpha-amylase to measure autonomic nervous system activity. Multilevel modeling results revealed that couples in the PT condition displayed greater autonomic attunement over the course of the conflict session compared to those in the other conditions. In addition, female partners’ dispositional PT enhanced the effect of the PT induction on couples’ attunement. Furthermore, secondary analyses provided support for the beneficial role of autonomic attunement. Specifically, attunement was decreased by negative conflict behaviors and predicted increased post-conflict negative affect in females. Implications for dyadic functioning and intervention are discussed.

Diversity and conflict: Negotiating linguistic, ethnic and emotional boundaries in Greek-Cypriot literacy classrooms

This article explores the interplay between discourses on diversity and the realities of interethnic conflict, through a study in the conflict-affected Greek-Cypriot context. Drawing on ethnographic data from Greek-Cypriot literacy classrooms, and particularly, on lessons about the ethnic conflict in Cyprus, it examines how children from diverse backgrounds, statuses, and experiences are introduced to a conflict Discourse, how they socialise and/or become literate in the conflict narrative, and with what implications. The findings show that although in ‘ordinary’ lessons diversity was mostly acknowledged and discussed unproblematically, when conflict figured as a topic in classroom interaction, teachers tended to resort to stereotypical representations of ‘us’ and ‘others’ which created further complexities for the children. This article points to the potentials and limitations of diversity, serving as a point of departure for the renegotiation of ethnic and emotional boundaries within a troubled context with implications for teachers and students.

Jesus, psychological type and conflict: A study in biblical hermeneutics applying the reader perspective and SIFT approach to Mark 11:11–21

The Marcan account of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, cursing the fig tree and overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple provides a classic scriptural reference point for a Christian discussion of conflict. Drawing on psychological type theory and on the reader perspective proposed by the SIFT (sensing, intuition, feeling and thinking) approach to biblical hermeneutics and liturgical preaching, this study tests the theory that different psychological types will interpret this classic passage differently. Data collected in two residential programmes concerned with Christianity and conflict from type-aware participants confirmed characteristic differences between the approaches of sensing types and intuitive types and between the approaches of thinking types and feeling types.