Peace Activists Research Articles

The Case of Female Perpetrators of International Crimes: Exploratory Insights and New Research Directions

Abstract Although conflicts are often considered to be an exclusively male domain, historical records of conflicts throughout the 20th century show that women also actively participate in warfare – not only as peace activists, humanitarian workers, health care providers, politicians and soldiers but also as perpetrators of crimes. Nevertheless, the participation of women in the commission of international crimes, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, has long been considered an anomaly that falls beyond the ‘normal’ scope of conflict-related criminality. Consequently, this topic has been deemed marginal in scholarly circles and, until recently, has remained significantly under-researched. This article contributes to the existing research by presenting an original analysis of the characteristics of conflict-related criminality among women and of criminal prosecutions of female perpetrators of international crimes in modern conflicts, primarily focusing on World War II, and the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. It further offers a first systematic overview and analysis of domestic trials of women prosecuted for international crimes before the courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.

Las causas de las protestas pacíficas en América Latina

América Latina experimenta una creciente actividad en movimientos sociales. El artículo indaga las condiciones del contexto nacional y los factores individuales que explican las protestas pacíficas en la región. Tras examinar las teorías e investigaciones previas sobre las protestas en el mundo, el trabajo contrasta las principales hipótesis causales en el caso latinoamericano desarrollando modelos de regresión lineal jerárquica o multinivel a partir de datos de la encuesta Latinobarómetro y otros indicadores políticos, económicos y sociales de 18 países de la región. El principal impulsor individual del activismo pacífico es el interés por la política, seguido por un proxy de valores emancipatorios y el nivel educativo. Los niveles de desarrollo y democracia del país y el grado en que los valores mencionados están difundidos en la sociedad aumentan el activismo y amplifican el impacto de esos impulsores individuales. El uso de redes sociales ejerce un influjo relevante. Por sí sola, la insatisfacción personal y política tiene efectos débiles o no significativos. Las protestas pacíficas de los latinoamericanos reflejan el ascenso de ciudadanos empoderados y más exigentes, a medida que el desarrollo económico y humano avanza en la región. Lejos de perturbar la democracia, este proceso tiende a profundizarla.

Amos Oz inA Tale of Love and Darkness

AbstractThis paper looks at the call for a dialogue underlying Amos Oz’s autobiographical novelA Tale of Love and Darkness.1As a peace activist,2Oz depicts the Arab Palestinian under Israeli military occupation as a victim and reintroduces himself as a new, unorthodox Jew. In this context, the paper approaches the author-narrator’s message calling for a dialogue with the Palestinian other, albeit through a Chekhovian solution to an existentialist conflict entangling both the Arabs and the Jews over the Question of Palestine. Thanks to the complicity between the Western Colonial Project3and the Zionist plan to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, most of the Palestinian population was expelled and dispossessed. Oz condemns that complicity and stands out as a Jewish voice for peace. His narrative discourse implies that he is crossing a minefield while trying to help resuscitate the current stale-mate peace process in the Middle East.

Challenging a ‘Warist’ Society with Digital Peace Pedagogy

This article offers strategies for a peace pedagogy that is informed by combining techniques from feminist theory and peace studies with the digital humanities. Here we describe how the first-year Writing Seminar “Peace Testimonies in Literature & Art,” taught in Spring 2017 at Haverford College, collaborated with the activist organization the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to participate in the collection and curation of oral histories projects. In this class, students conducted oral history interviews of peace activists at the 2017 AFSC symposium “Waging Peace: AFSC’s Summit for Peace and Justice” (April 20-23 in Philadelphia, PA), and then analyzed the videos of these interviews through OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) and the video editing software Camtasia. Here we discusses how feminist, digital, and peace pedagogies can be combined to help students recover the lost histories of pacifist activism.

Rethinking “participation” in Women, Peace and Security discourses: engaging with “non-participant” women's movements in the Eastern borderlands of India

ABSTRACT The contributions and experiences of women in conflict at the grassroots level in India are not well recognized by the Indian state. In this article, I examine women's engagement with conflict in the Darjeeling Hills and Nagaland in the Eastern regions of India, highlighting both the varied forms of conflict and women's experiences of them. I use these case studies to engage with the question of “participation” as envisioned by the Women, Peace and Security agenda, which has often been understood only in terms of the representation of women at the “high table” of peace negotiations. Restricting the idea of participation to representation alone not only constrains women's agency but also reproduces a binary of “participants” and “non-participants,” obscuring the different ways in which women actually participate in peace activism and conflict prevention. By examining women's experiences and engagement in these “hidden” conflicts, I provide a more nuanced account of women's agency and open up space for different conceptualizations of participation in the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

Transitional justice and the challenges of a feminist peace

Abstract Colombia’s 2016 Peace Accords with the former FARC guerrillas expressed the triumphs and challenges of feminist mobilization. The resulting deal has been touted as “history’s most inclusive peace deal internationally.” During the negotiations groups of women combatants, government officials, and activists were successful in integrating a gender perspective into the Accords; their triumph extended to the selection of the judges of the new transitional justice system, where gender parity is a first for regional courts. With power, however, come new and complex challenges, not least the fact that perpetrators who admit perpetrating crimes of sexual violence will receive lenient, community service, sentences. Hope is perhaps to be found in feminist peace activism in Colombia, which has far exceeded the reiteration of women’s sexual victimization, and is set to take advantage of the incorporation of restorative justice to insist on the centrality of victim impact statements, the assessment of harm as part of transitional justice, and the incorporation of victim agency and expertise. However, as this article also argues, feminist activists are also right to be skeptical: there is no clear path to the construction of a feminist peace.

Changing the World from “Below”: U.S. Peace Activists and the Transnational Struggle for Peace and Détente in the 1980s

Much more so than previous works in the field of U.S. foreign relations, this article explores the relationship between the Helsinki Accords and peace activism in the United States. The article explains how well-known groups such as U.S. Helsinki Watch and lesser-known ones such as Campaign for Peace and Democracy West/East used the Helsinki Final Act when they challenged U.S. peace activists to defend the rights of imprisoned anti-nuclear activists in the Soviet bloc and to link the causes of peace and human rights. The article also demonstrates how the exchanges between U.S. human rights and anti-nuclear activists fit into transnational debates about linkages between the issues of human rights, peace, détente, and the “Helsinki process.”

The role of sensation seeking in political violence: An extension of the Significance Quest Theory.

Adventure and excitement have often been invoked to explain why people engage in political violence, yet empirical evidence on the topic has thus far been anecdotal. The present research sought to fill this gap in knowledge by examining the role of sensation seeking in political violence and integrating this concept with Significance Quest Theory (Kruglanski, Chen, Dechesne, Fishman, & Orehek, 2009; Kruglanski et al., 2013). Extending prior research on violent extremism, Study 1 found that sensation seeking mediated the relation between meaning in life and willingness to self-sacrifice and support for political violence. Study 2 established temporal precedence of the variables in the mediation model, using a longitudinal design. Studies 3 and 4 experimentally replicated findings of Studies 1 and 2. In Studies 5a and 5b, we found that sensation seeking predicts support for a real life violent activist group. In Studies 6a and 6b, the positive evaluation of a violent activist group by individuals high in sensation seeking was explained by how exciting they perceived the group to be. Finally, Study 7 introduced an intervention targeting the sensation seeking motive by presenting participants with a peaceful (less exciting vs. exciting) activism group. As hypothesized, providing individuals high in sensation seeking with a peaceful yet exciting group mitigated their support for extreme behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Left in the West: Literature, Culture, and Progressive Politics in the American West ed. by Gioia Woods

Reviewed by: Left in the West: Literature, Culture, and Progressive Politics in the American West ed. by Gioia Woods Daniel Worden Left in the West: Literature, Culture, and Progressive Politics in the American West. Edited by Gioia Woods. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2018. vii + 432 pp. Illustrations, contributors, index. $34.95, paper. This expansive and provocative collection of essays focuses on how Left politics took shape in western American literature from the Progressive Era to the present. As Gioia Woods notes in the volume's introduction, the literary Left is typically thought to be rooted in the urban centers of the East Coast, and while the leftist politics in the West shared many ideas and even writers with the East, "western leftists developed concerns unique to the region, elevating issues of industrialization and environmental degradation, Native American sovereignty, and immigrant communities' access to power" (3). Woods's introduction usefully contextualizes the history of leftist activism and writing in the West, from figures like Kenneth Rexroth and Lawrence Ferlinghetti to the recent struggle over the Dakota Access Pipeline. This broad scope is a key contribution of this volume. On the one hand, essays in the book address well-known political texts, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, Woody Guthrie's ballads, and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Yet on the other hand, many essays address archives, figures, and texts that broaden and complicate what might count as leftist politics in the twentieth- and twenty-first-century West. From essays about peace activists in Utah, Ward Moore's speculative fiction, Mari Sandoz's fiction and autobiography, and the environmentalist thinking of Peter Berg, to accounts of poet Jack Spicer's revision of frontier tropes, Edward Weston and Tina Modotti's photographic engagement with bohemian spaces, Deborah Miranda's blend of the personal and the political, and Louise Thompson's unpublished memoirs, the collection arranges a broad array of ideas under the banner of "progressive politics." The essays in the volume tend to be focused on particular archives or texts, and so the overarching connections between the variety and abundance of material in the volume can feel disconnected. Yet that is less of a problem with the volume than evidence of its success in expanding and revising our expectations about what fits under the rubric of leftist politics in western American literature. This edited volume adds to the already well-established scholarship on leftist politics in twentieth-century America, by drawing attention to the unique rapacity of political thinking and writing west of the Mississippi River. [End Page 116] Daniel Worden School of Individualized Study and Department of English Rochester Institute of Technology Copyright © 2020 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

"Hands Off Korea!": Women's Internationalist Solidarity and Peace Activism in Early Cold War Cuba

"Hands Off Korea!": Women's Internationalist Solidarity and Peace Activism in Early Cold War Cuba

A Violent Peace and America’s Copperhead Legacy

ABSTRACTThis essay analyzes Union peace activism, commonly called the “Copperhead” movement, to illustrate how anti-war rhetoric during the US Civil War participated in debates over the nature of political violence. While the Copperhead push to end the war failed, the movement was an influential cultural and electoral force, pressuring opponents to modify their views while popularizing a version of national identity that did not end with the advent of Reconstruction. Far from petitioning for peace, the Copperheads’ rhetoric reframed the boundaries of justified violence along intersecting lines of gender, race, and memory. Specifically, I consider how the Copperheads appealed to a powerful “generational” memory built on a gendered interpretation of activism itself, offering a narrative of “manly” resolve meant to withstand the withering effects of their effeminate opponents who threatened the bedrock of an American civilization indebted to a white supremacist system.

Shrine: War Memorials and the Digital Age

Shrine: War Memorials and the Digital Age

Mobilization for peace: Analyzing religious peace activism

Under what conditions do religious groups engage in peace activism? Religious groups engage in peace activism if the associated costs are low and they compete with either conflict party over the interpretation of their religious content concerning war and peace. Peace activism is a promising action as peace activists maintain their positive self-evaluation. I introduce a novel dataset of peace activism for 511 religious groups in 128 countries from 1990 to 2008. Conditional fixed effects and logistic models support my hypotheses. The findings highlight the role of rational considerations in the decision to conduct peace activities by representatives of religious groups.

Countering Buddhist radicalisation: emerging peace movements in Myanmar and Sri Lanka

Violence and hate speech endorsed by Buddhist monks against Muslim minorities in South and Southeast Asia have attracted global attention in recent years, and been the focus for a growing academic scholarship. This article turns the attention to peace activists, religious – including Buddhist – leaders and other civil society actors seeking to counter anti-Muslim agitation in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Drawing on theories about social movements and countermovements, it analyses the diverse counter-forces, their activities and the obstacles they face. Doing so, the article contributes to an understanding of peacebuilding in religiously framed conflicts, and of the conditions for peace movements in an age of radicalisation and online activism. Based on interviews with civil society representatives and religious leaders, complemented with secondary sources, the study finds that although the peace movements are weaker and largely reactive to and restrained by the radical Buddhist nationalist movements, they constitute important counter-voices. The article also argues that the struggle between hate speech and counter speech in social media constitutes an important part of the movement–countermovement dynamics. Finally, the article suggests that theories on opposing movements can usefully be developed to enhance our understanding of mobilisation in different arenas in conflict-affected societies.

Pedagogical dilemmas among Bedouin-Palestinian peace educators in Israel

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to learn how minority peace educators grapple with dilemmas related to their involvement in peace programs.Design/methodology/approachA total of 15 male teachers, members of the minority Bedouin community in Israel, all peace educators, provided their reactions to three dilemmas, addressing various facets of the strained relations of their community with the Jewish-Israeli majority, as influenced by the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.FindingsThe responses to these dilemmas suggest that when it comes to questions of the identity of these teachers as members of a marginalized community, their responses considerably diverge. This is not the case when it comes to their identity as peace educators.Originality/valueThis suggests that if the aim is to bring peace educators, members of minority groups in conflict zones, to harness their potential to bring about positive change, their peace activist identities must be strengthened.

Narratives of Donor Accountability in Support to Peace Processes: The Case of the Joint Peace Fund in Myanmar

There is a growing scholarly focus on the accountability of Northern donors in their work in recipient countries. Yet scholarly work on donor accountability has given limited attention to the complex challenges of accountability when donors are engaged in supporting peace processes. Further, literature on donor accountability often focuses on examination of accountability mechanisms and relationships, whilst the way accountability is understood amongst practitioners has received less attention. Using the example of donor support to peace processes in Myanmar, this article examines the way that accountability is narrated within donor agencies and amongst international and local networks of peace activists and analysts. When attached to simplified stories, accountability takes a variety of meanings and serves to position donors in different ways. Examination of these narratives, and their divergence, reveals that policy negotiation about accountability mechanisms is influenced by political assumptions about the legitimacy of donor agency engagement in peace processes.

Unofficial Storytelling as Middle Ground Between Transitional Truth-Telling and Forgetting: A New Approach to Dealing With the Past in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina

Is transitional truth-telling more beneficial to reconciliation than remaining silent about past crimes? The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate by exploring the impact of “My Story,” an NGO initiative that uses multiethnic storytelling by victims of the Bosnian war to promote reconciliation. We report field observations and the results obtained from interviews with young Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. Empathy, as a reported outcome of the storytelling, seems to enable deeper reflection and attitude change. Respondents reported reduced prejudice, competitive victimhood and blaming, and increased interest in information about the outgroup, increased interest in peace activism, a change of emotions toward the outgroup and feeling guilt for the misdeeds of their ingroup. We conclude that this storytelling initiative is beneficial and worth spreading internationally. It deconstructs many of the same factors that prevent reconciliation that truth commissions aim to deconstruct, while improving interethnic attitudes and enabling to look toward the future, as forgetting does.

Unofficial Storytelling as Middle Ground Between Transitional Truth-Telling and Forgetting: A New Approach to Dealing With the Past in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina

Is transitional truth-telling more beneficial to reconciliation than remaining silent about past crimes? The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate by exploring the impact of “My Story,” an NGO initiative that uses multiethnic storytelling by victims of the Bosnian war to promote reconciliation. We report field observations and the results obtained from interviews with young Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. Empathy, as a reported outcome of the storytelling, seems to enable deeper reflection and attitude change. Respondents reported reduced prejudice, competitive victimhood and blaming, and increased interest in information about the outgroup, increased interest in peace activism, a change of emotions toward the outgroup and feeling guilt for the misdeeds of their ingroup. We conclude that this storytelling initiative is beneficial and worth spreading internationally. It deconstructs many of the same factors that prevent reconciliation that truth commissions aim to deconstruct, while improving interethnic attitudes and enabling to look toward the future, as forgetting does.

The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Creating Conflict Resolution through Multicultural Education

Dermolo as one of the villages in Kembang, Jepara, was ever hit by a conflict under a religious background. This friction involved Islamic and Christian groups. The dispute between the two groups increasingly culminated and seemed to have no end without the presence of the Nation. When the Regional Government of Jepara encountered a deadlock in breaking down this social conflict, the presence of a civil society organization was absolutely necessary. Lakpesdam NU Jepara since 2014 up to now has been trying to extinguish the fire of conflict in Dermolo which was initially triggered by disputes over the use of a worship place. Through a qualitative descriptive approach by utilizing the theory of conflict resolution and multicultural education, this paper finally succeeds in mapping the four multicultural education patterns used by Lakpesdam NU. Those are economic empowerment, religious approaches, empowering women, and empowering village cadres. The result of this academic discourse at the same time provides an alternative methodological offer that can be replicated by the stakeholders of the policy makers, for example the Regional Government and the relevant Regional Apparatus Organization. It can be used as a prototype for civil society organizations and peace activists in settling disputes wrapped in religious sentiment. This kind of inclusive pattern is considered quite successful as a conflict resolution strategy. Lakpesdam NU Jepara is the only institution that has the sympathy of the residents and the Dermolo Government, because it has contributed positively in restoring social harmony between Christian and Islam groups

Democracy needs education: public performance, peace, and pedagogy, Julia Grace Wales

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore the academic life of Julia Grace Wales as a public intellectual and peace activist. The study addresses the largely neglected field of female educators and peace activists in the early to mid-twentieth century through a case study of one woman’s lifelong popular education campaign to achieve peace and social justice. In these initiatives of lectures, publications, poetry, hymn, memoir, textbook, and correspondence with leaders in religious, academic, and government institutions, Wales took seriously her role as an academic in a democratic society to resolve international conflicts without war. As a public educator, she emerged at a time of growing professionalisation and specialisation among American universities. Although Wales was unique in her position as a woman, academic, and peace activist, we learn how she capitalised upon multiple profiles to advance her point of view. In this article, we assert that it was from her position on the margins that she drew her strength and determined her actions. In framing Wales’ initiatives throughout her career, we gain a glimpse as to the complexity of her motivation to expand the profile of academics beyond universities’ walls.