Element Of Peacebuilding Research Articles

Conflicts in music in the South Caucasus: The case of Armenians and Azerbaijanis

This article explores how music is employed in the service of nationalist ideas by two Caucasian peoples: the Azeris and the Armenians. The small-scale case study reported here focuses on a folk song that is popular in both nations (known respectively as Sari Gelin/Sari Aghjik) and on its reception in social media. The paper shows that doctrinal, national myths cultivated in Armenia and Azerbaijan are remarkably similar and have a stronghold in the mindset of the respective nations on an everyday level. Individuals from both nations may include certain desired elements in their respective cultures or exclude certain unwanted elements that reveal the similarities between the two. Both countries are characterised by semi-totalitarian regimes in which a state-financed official media is under the control of an oligarchy or the government. As this makes social media one of the very few places for free discourse, elements of peace-building between countries can also be found. Yet even here, on a micro level, social media reflects national myths that are common to these two nations.

Peacebuilding in Colombia: Context and Balance

This is the translation into English of the introductory chapter to my book Construccion de paz en Colombia (Peacebuilding in Colombia), which was published in 2012. In this chapter I present some of the main elements of peacebuilding in Colombia against the context both of changes in international peacebuilding activity and in the dynamics of the decade-old Colombian armed conflict. Currently, government and guerrilla negotiators are debating the contents of a peace agreement that would bring an end to sixty years of political violence in Colombia. Against this background, this document provides hints of both the strengths and challenges the country will face in building lasting peace.

Sharing the Wealth

This article critically examines the notion that wealth sharing in the aftermath of internal armed conflicts can bring about long-lasting peace. While wealth sharing is increasingly considered a crucial element of peacebuilding, the evidence concerning its success is inconclusive. Previous studies unfortunately suffer from weak theoretical and empirical definitions of wealth sharing and from examining only a subset of postconflict societies. This article improves the research by disaggregating the concept of wealth sharing to concrete policy relevant natural resource management tools and by introducing new and better data on wealth sharing and including more postconflict peace periods than previous studies. This article examines the relationships between armed conflict, wealth sharing and peace by studying two independent but interlinked research questions: In which postconflict societies is wealth sharing most likely to be adopted? And can wealth sharing bring stable peace in postconflict societies? The analyses show that wealth sharing is more likely to be implemented after natural resource conflicts. Nonetheless, the article does not find that wealth sharing is successful in bringing postconflict peace after these conflicts. Reasons for this can be that (1) other factors than wealth sharing explain the outcome better, and (2) the wealth sharing policies are poorly designed and implemented. The article concludes that wealth sharing can only be a suitable path for societies recovering from armed conflict if such policies are carefully designed to fit the specific context and take into account the challenges that will arrive.

Water Scarcity in the Middle East: Balancing Conflict, Development, and Survival in Turkey, Syria and Iraq

This article highlights the importance of water as a source of conflict in the Middle East and as an element of peacebuilding and development. It studies the internal and external factors that create and increase water scarcity – and thus the prospects for conflict – between Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The causes and impacts of water scarcity are examined and possible solutions are presented for reducing scarcity and achieving development and peace in these neighbouring countries.