Long-running Civil War Research Articles

The Impact of FDI in South Sudan

The primary goal of this study was to establish the impacts that FDI has had on South Sudan. Based on the ethnography design, this study’s data collection approach involved a review of secondary data. The location-based approach and the institutional FDI fitness theories are the models that underpin the study. The results of the study are enlightening and intriguing. In addition to establishing that South Sudan has been unable to fully leverage FDI, the study also determined that FDI has failed to improve South Sudan’s economy and that poverty levels in the country remain high. Furthermore, it was observed that despite modest increases in FDI levels, the quality of life for the people of South Sudan is still low and the country continues to grapple with a long-running civil war that has claimed thousands of lives. The main policy implication of the study is that South Sudan needs to take steps to create a political, social, and economic environment that foreign investors will find to be appealing.

Angola's quadruple bonanza: Where did all the money go?

Angola enjoyed a remarkable oil bonanza from 2002 to 2014, as the end of a long-running civil war coincided with a rise in oil production, high world oil prices, and large reconstruction assistance from China. This article takes stock of progress since then, asking whether and how this bonanza benefited Angola's people, what might have happened to all the money, and whether it resulted in changes to Angola's political structure. Many of the same rent-seeking activities as before were evident, but were complemented by a multitude of others. This has lessons for policy-makers studying capital flight and illicit financial flows.

Major Leadership Features of the Peace Process in Colombia

This article examines the main leadership components of peace negotiations between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Havana, Cuba. It identifies the leadership factors associated with the success of the four-year peace process that started in 2012; while comparing it to previous peace dialogues in Colombia to draw out the political learning process. The hypothesis is that three components, namely political learning in its complexity, the inclusion of women, and the inclusion of victims, have been crucial for the success of the peace process. Firstly, the concept of political learning is understood as materialising as a political leadership function. Second, in an idiosyncratic and to some extent patriarchal culture like Colombia’s, it is essential to examine the role of women in the peacebuilding process as engaging negotiators and mediators, rather than as only being passively exposed to politics. Third, the inclusion of victims in peace negotiations was an uncommon decision, and it appears to have eased the Accords. This article also contends that leadership as process, and in particular leadership styles, are fundamental to understanding the complexity that led to ending the world’s longest-running civil war.

Political transition and emergent forest-conservation issues in Myanmar.

Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where transitions are underway or anticipated, historical precedent and methods for systematically assessing future trends should be used to anticipate likely threats to forest conservation and design appropriate and prescient policy measures to counteract them. Myanmar is transitioning from an authoritarian, centralized state with a highly regulated economy to a more decentralized and economically liberal democracy and is working to end a long-running civil war. With these transitions in mind, we used a horizon-scanning approach to assess the 40 emerging issues most affecting Myanmar's forests, including internal conflict, land-tenure insecurity, large-scale agricultural development, demise of state timber enterprises, shortfalls in government revenue and capacity, and opening of new deforestation frontiers with new roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams. Averting these threats will require, for example, overhauling governance models, building capacity, improving infrastructure- and energy-project planning, and reforming land-tenure and environmental-protection laws. Although challenges to conservation in Myanmar are daunting, the political transition offers an opportunity for conservationists and researchers to help shape a future that enhances Myanmar's social, economic, and environmental potential while learning and applying lessons from other countries. Our approach and results are relevant to other countries undergoing similar transitions.

United States Strikes Syrian Government Airbase in Response to Chemical Weapons Attacks by Syrian Forces; Two Additional Strikes on Syrian Government Forces Justified by Defense of Troops Rationale

On April 6, 2017, the United States launched air strikes against a Syrian government airfield, marking a new development in Syria's long-running civil war. U.S. involvement in the conflict had previously been limited to the provision of indirect support for some rebels and the use of direct force against certain nonstate actors, particularly Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This changed in the wake of April 4, however, when a rebel-held town was hit by a nerve gas attack that killed more than eighty people—including at least thirty children—and injured hundreds more. The attack used Sarin or a Sarin-like substance, which causes death by asphyxiation, often accompanied by blue facial skin and foaming at the mouth. The United States concluded, along with many other states and the NGO Human Rights Watch, that the attack was perpetrated by Syria's Assad regime.

A Digital History of Anglophone Demography and Global Population Control, 1915–1984

A Digital History of Anglophone Demography and Global Population Control, 1915–1984

Peace and Reconciliation in the Making: The Case of Colombia and Lessons for Existing Armed Conflicts in Africa (and Beyond)

Colombia can be regarded as the longest running civil war in the world. However, the country can also be seen as an example of successful peace initiatives and failed peace attempts; a series of lessons have been learned in regards to peace building and reconciliation. The current peace process with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC-EP, and the prospects for a final peace agreement with this organization do not emerge in a vacuum: it is the outcome of several initiatives for peace since the mid 1980’s, and of a state infrastructure geared in that direction for more than three decades. The current prospects for making peace a reality in Colombia are informed by previous peace processes, failures and experiences that have helped to consolidate the institutions and practices that enhance the possibilities of success in the current peace process. I argue that the learning from the failures of the past three decades of peace building initiatives in Colombia can serve as a referent to inform future peace initiatives in African countries.

Supporting a Radical Peace: Reflections on the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado

The peace community of San Jose de Apartado was formed in 1997 amidst the long-running civil war between the Colombian government and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia/The Revolutionary A...

Shifting Tides in South Asia: Sri Lanka’s Postwar Descent

Abstract: While many had hoped that the end of Sri Lanka’s long-running civil war in May 2009 might bring about a restoration of the rule of law and reconciliation between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority, the government under President Mahinda Rajapaksa has continued its march down the authoritarian path. By further centralizing power under his office and family, by transforming the parliament and judiciary into veritable arms of the executive, and by promoting a culture of impunity whereby political elites and military personnel face little or no consequences for their blatant violations of human rights and malfeasance, the Rajapaksa regime has presided over one of the island’s worst episodes of democratic regression.

South Sudan Negotiated Independence: A Critique of African Union’s Role

The emergence of South Sudan on the 9th of July 2011 as the world's 195th independentState, 54th Member State of the African Union (AU) and 209th Federation of InternationalFootball Association member (FIFA) marks the final stage of a six year peace agreementending decades of protracted civil war. According to BBC between 1983 and the peaceagreement signed in January 2005, Sudan's civil war took nearly two million lives and leftmillions more displaced. It is reputed as Africa's longest-running civil war. The Sudanesecivil war took roots from its colonial experience, which led to forceful cohabitation ofArabic (North) and African (South) ethnic groups into a single state.

Myanmar. The authority of influence: Women and power in Burmese history. By Jessica Harriden. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2012. Pp. 370. Index.

The authority of influence: Women and power in Burmese history By JESSICA HARRIDEN Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2012. Pp. 370. Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000489 The authority of influence provides an overview of the development of Burmese women's role in their country's history. The author appears to include some ethnic minority women such as Olive Yang, Kokang state patroness during the 1960s, and a few representatives of other major minorities such as the Karen and Shan in this review. The book may have begun life as a doctoral thesis which has been slightly revised. Although it was published in 2012, the main perspective of the writing appears to be prior to the 2010 elections and the subsequent initiation of the reform processes, the major focus is on the misdeeds of the former military government. The author skips through many centuries of Burmese history up to the colonial takeover from 1826 up to 1885 with a general rendition of the historical trajectory, but without, however, contributing any innovative insights. The main conceptual framework appears to be that Burmese women (read also ethnic minority women) occupy a subordinate place in both Burmese history and society, but exert influence on their menfolk through their marriages and family connections. One feels like remarking, is this not also the way of the world in other societies both in the past and currently? The author singles out a few historical exceptions such as Queen Me Nu, consort to King Bagyidaw, and Queen Supayalat, consort to the last Konbaung dynasty monarch, King Thihaw, whose uncharacteristic accessions were marked by the usual distasteful bloodletting resulting in the loss of the kingdom to the invading foreign forces. No new perspectives are however given to the reader about these historical figures and their rather pedestrian interpretation and portrayals are standard fare. When one arrives at the redoubtable, revolver-toting, drug-smuggling Olive Yang, about whom there is already a very good biography, one might be forgiven for anticipating that at last the author will have found an exciting, atypical female to examine critically. But alas, Olive is passed over with only cursory treatment despite her very modern lifestyle and lesbian film-star lover. The author's description of some of the women involved in the exile movement and the long-running civil war promised greater reward and some of the information proferred about these females is revealing. However, not enough is made of this information and in the final analysis the author admits that they too were unable to rise to real power in their movements, but were mostly relegated to that subordinate role of influence without power which she sees as the province of most Burmese women. …

South Sudan: from revolution to independence

In July 2011 the Republic of South Sudan achieved independence, concluding what had been Africa's longest running civil war. The process leading to independence was driven by the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, a primarily Southern rebel force and political movement intent on bringing about the reformed unity of the whole Sudan. Through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, a six year peace process unfolded in the form of an interim period premised upon 'making unity attractive' for the Sudan. A failed exercise, it culminated in an almost unanimous vote for independence by Southerners in a referendum held in January 2011. Violence has continued since, and a daunting possibility for South Sudan has arisen - to have won independence only to descend into its own civil war, with the regime in Khartoum aiding and abetting factionalism to keep the new state weak and vulnerable. Achieving a durable peace will be a massive challenge, and resolving the issues that so inflamed Southerners historically - unsupportive governance, broad feelings of exploitation and marginalisation and fragile ethnic politics - will determine South Sudan's success or failure at statehood. A story of transformation and of victory against the odds, this book reviews South Sudan's modern history as a contested region and assesses the political, social and security dynamics that will shape its immediate future as Africa's newest independent state.

Qualitative and Quantitative Research: Two Cultures

Back to table of contents Next article Taking IssueFull AccessQualitative and Quantitative Research: Two CulturesKim Hopper Ph.D.,Kim Hopper Ph.D.Search for more papers by this author,Published Online:1 Jul 2008AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Aside from an understandable need to support the "Full Employment for Anthropologists Act of 2008," there is a very good reason to embrace the call to expand use of qualitative research methods in mental health services: we can't understand what's actually going on without them. This isn't special pleading—it is mundane fact. If we want to understand how it works (whatever "it" may messily turn out to be), what it means, and the enabling contingencies that seem to sustain it, we need to deploy such methods.That both quantitative and qualitative methods are needed and appropriate, depending upon the task at hand, seems deniable only by those with a professional stake in being contrary. As Robins and colleagues argue in the lead article in this issue, parity in planning and engaged communication make for fruitful mixed-methods projects. "Q-squared" as our merry European colleagues sometimes call it.Calls for closely watched, carefully documented, and scrupulously interpreted accounts of programs in action, of undeclared (and potentially disabling) agendas, and of tacit refusals that masquerade as enthusiastic endorsements steadily pour in from clinicians and researchers. It isn't hard to see why. Within the irksome, recalcitrant, unsettled, misbehaving nest of hidden variables—what Hohmann and Shear once mischievously referred to as "the noise of real life"—often lie undetected arbiters of program success. It can be as elusive as the added value of unpaid work or as plain as the transportation costs no one asked about.Published examples of qualitative methods in action are becoming more common. In this issue, Palinkas and colleagues found evidence for Schoen's "reflexive practitioner," but not as rare exemplar of craft. Instead, such practitioners appear as common and ill-accommodated burrs in intervention studies. When this finding is added to the study's jarring contextual finding that nearly a third of clinicians withdrew from the study for reasons external to the intervention itself, the difficulties of conducting and learning from such research projects become evident. In a remarkably matter-of-fact passage, however, Palinkas and colleagues describe how "creativity and compromise" were used to keep clinicians engaged—a hopeful if inadvertent rejoinder to the problems inventoried by Robins and colleagues.Requiring students to take sides in this long-running civil war between methods of inquiry has outlived its utility. A working knowledge of each other's toolkits and sensibilities seems essential to productive work in the field today. And more: Clifford Geertz argued that an ethnographic proficiency is key to competent citizenship on the globalized home front. Mixed-methods research is good practice in diversity—in "learning to grasp what we cannot [or choose not to] embrace." The skill of bridging cultures is "arduously learned" (Geertz again) and, once learned, something we must "work continuously to keep alive." Words to live (and work) by.Nathan Kline Institute, Orangeburg, New York FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByThe ties that bind: Using ethnographic methods to understand service engagement17 April 2012 | Qualitative Social Work, Vol. 11, No. 4Mixed-Methods Designs in Mental Health Services Research: A ReviewLawrence A. Palinkas, Ph.D., Sarah M. Horwitz, Ph.D., Patricia Chamberlain, Ph.D., Michael S. Hurlburt, Ph.D., and John Landsverk, Ph.D.1 March 2011 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 62, No. 3LetterLaurence P. Karper, M.D.1 September 2008 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 59, No. 9LetterKim Hopper, Ph.D.1 September 2008 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 59, No. 9LetterVincenzo Villari, M.D.Giulio Barzega, M.D.1 September 2008 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 59, No. 9LetterChih-Ming Lin, Ph.D.Chung-Yi Li, Ph.D.1 September 2008 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 59, No. 9 Volume 59Issue 7 July, 2008Pages 711-711PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES July 2008 Volume 59 Number 7 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 July 2008 Published in print 1 July 2008

Making a Killing: How and Why Corporations Use Armed Force to Do Business

Madelaine DrohanToronto: Random House Canada, 2003. 376pp, $37.95 cloth (ISBN 0-679-31197-1)With the increased focus upon non-state actors in recent times by both policy-makers and analysts, Madelaine Drohan's book examines arguably the darkest characteristic of one type of non-state actor: commercial entities operating in the developing world that use force to accrue profit. Guided by the overarching question of What would drive company...to sanction the use of armed force, knowing that lives would be lost? (p 4), the book presents number of disturbing cases, all taken from Africa over the past century and half. It examines the British South Africa Company and King Leopold's rubber companies in colonial times; de Beers, Union Minere and Lonrho during the Cold War; and Shell, Ranger Oil and Talisman, along with the exploits of Rakesh Saxena and Salim Saleh, during the 1990s.For North American readers, the book provides an interesting foil by which to assess contemporary controversies concerning the relationship between public political leaders and private activities. While Dick Cheney's connections with Halliburton or Paul Martin's relations with Canada Steamship Lines may be suspicious, these relationships are of lower order of magnitude when compared with Drohan's presentation of political celebrity Salim Saleh, the younger brother of Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni. In one of the book's most intriguing chapters, Drohan documents the complex mix between business, politics and the military as the dividing lines between public and private blur in Saleh's lucrative activities in both Uganda and the war-torn neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Despite Saleh's protest to the author that he is merely a military officer who is accidentally doing business (p 317), the reader is left with the definite impression that his activities were no mistake. Instead, they were the direct result of political connections and the use of brute force made possible in weak state.For Canadian readers, the book is both alarming and instructive. It is alarming because an explicit link in the book's cases can be drawn between violence and the activities of Canadian firms in Angola, Sierra Leone, Sudan and the DRC. It is instructive because, with respect to the Canadian oil firm Talisman in Sudan, the book reveals the limitations in pursuing the human security agenda, current trend in Canadian foreign policy. Drohan clarifies the problems former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy encountered as he tried to end Talisman's relationship with Sudanese government engaged in long-running civil war. Axworthy lacked the appropriate legislative tools, key cabinet members were not on board, and the termination of Talisman's activities posed both threat to independent Canadian oil production and electoral sensitivities in the Canadian oil patch. It becomes clear, therefore, that pursuing the human security agenda presents significant barriers. The necessary actors--state and non-state--may not necessarily be supportive, and the vested interests that need to be overcome--both political and economic--may be deep.The book does, however, have three detractions that lessen its overall impact. The first concerns the presentation of the evidence. On the one hand, the book's narrative style adds to the provocative nature of the subject matter. On the other hand, unity and coherence--both within and between paragraphs--are often lacking. While this writing style may serve Drohan well as newspaper reporter for the Globe and Mail, it does detract from the flow of an argument in book form. …

Emma's War: Love, Betrayal, and Death in the Sudan

Love, corruption, violence and the dangerous politics of aid in the Sudan, by an exciting new writer. Emma McCune's passion for Africa, her unstinting commitment to the children of the Sudan, and her striking glamour set her apart from other aid workers the moment she arrived in southern Sudan. But no one was prepared for her decision to marry a local warlord - a man who seemed to embody everything she was working against - and throw herself into his violent quest to take over southern Sudan's rebel movement. At once a disturbing love story and a penetrating examination of the Sudan, War charts the process by which Emma's romantic delusions led to her descent into the hell of Africa's longest running civil war.

From New York to Lusaka and beyond: Angola's tortuous road to peace

There have been various attempts to end Angola's long-running civil war, Each of these attempts has been met with failure. With the death of National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA) leader Dr Jonas Savimbi in February 2002, many have felt that Africa's long-running civil war has finally come to an end. Such optimism, it will be argued, is misplaced. Much needs to be done if violence is not to be revisited upon Angola's long-suffering people. The purpose of this paper is to provide a broad overview of the Angolan conflict, as well as to provide some input as to why the various agreements have failed to end the conflict. Understanding past failures is imperative if current efforts to secure peace in this war-ravaged country are not to flounder.

Local responses to globalization and peripheralization in Luanda, Angola

This paper questions the likely benefits of globalization for Luanda by considering how global political and economic forces affect the lives of its 3.4 million inhabitants. Most live in informal, self-constructed settlements which lack basic infrastructure and services. Most receive little benefit from the nation’s oil and diamond exports, while many have had their livelihoods eroded by the collapse of the local economy and the contraction of the state. The paper also describes how the city has always been shaped by external forces - as a port serving the slave trade or colonial export agriculture - and what the role of external forces has been in creating and perpetuating the long-running civil war. International organizations have criticized the state for not creating basic conditions of development but in fact rarely provide funds to help it do so. The key globalization issue for Luanda (and Angola) is not how to ensure a more effective trickle-down of benefits from export-led growth, but how more people can be productively engaged in the development process. In relation to this, the paper describes the growing role of civil society within Luanda and how, with appropriate support, this can help achieve the broader development objective.

Competition and Accommodation in Post-Conflict Democracy: The Case of Mozambique

Mozambique has just completed its second multiparty general elections, five years after the first such elections in 1994 capped a two-year peace process and ended a long-running civil war. Because of the special context of its 'democratic transition', Mozambique's new political system must promote both political competition and reconciliation. This is a tall order for any political system, but particularly so for one where democratic institutions are extremely weak and distrust between political actors runs high. While avoiding the 'fallacy of electoralism', this article takes the 1994 and 1999 general elections and the 1998 local elections as benchmarks with which to assess progress toward accommodating these two goals and establishing a democratic political system in Mozambique. The article compares the three elections in terms of their broader impact on the transition process, with particular attention to how the experience of preparing for and conducting elections in each case has affected the larger transition process in two respects. The first of these respects lies in the creation of norms and patterns of interaction in political institutions; the second is in terms of the impact on the outlooks and strategies of the two major political parties with respect to democratic politics in Mozambique.

'The world is watching and we've got a message'


 
 
 
 World coverage on the Sandline affair was in contrast to that of the long-running civil war on Bougainville. Foreign journalists have been kept out and perhaps it is just a coincidence that its horrors have never been live on CNN but now peace is close for its hard-pressed people.