Peace In Post-conflict Societies Research Articles

Disappointment’s Magic: Negative Emotions, Transitional Justice and Resistance

This article explores how an existential account of emotions can enrich debates about negative emotions in transitional justice and peacebuilding scholarship. A growing literature has examined the challenge that the ex-resisters’ negative emotions, including disappointment, pose to the creation of sustainable peace in post-conflict societies. It has however not sufficiently accounted for disappointment’s potentially productive political value. The paper fills this gap by examining how the ex-resisters’ disappointment affects their capacity for political action against the remainders of past violence and oppression, with a specific focus on the South African context. I draw on Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential account of the emotions’ ‘magic’ as a way of coping with the complexities of political action arising from our situated condition. I put Sartre’s account in conversation with Nadine Gordimer’s novel No Time Like the Present and experiences of disappointment among South African ex-resisters to show how disappointment can lead ex-resisters to different ways of confronting the complexity of political engagement in the wake of the incomplete transition. This dialogue reveals disappointment as a powerful source of resistance against the persistence of injustice, while also disclosing significant constraints upon political engagement in conditions of systemic violence.

How Mutually Hurting Stalemates Become Essential in Peace-building Efforts. The Case of Liberia

"The paper focuses on two concepts developed by William Zartman, namely “ripe moments” and “mutually hurting stalemates”. Basically, the concepts tackle the idea of certain proper moments for the beginning of peace talks when the parties to the conflict believe that they are trapped in a painful impasse which no longer brings them victory. Our paper aims to show that hurting stalemates are sometimes the adequate starting point for peace-building efforts as well, not only for starting negotiations, and to apply this on the case of Liberia. The paper is organized around the following research questions: Is the hurting stalemate a military deadlock? Is a similar painful deadlock a good starting point for building sustainable peace in post-conflict societies? Keywords: peace studies, ripeness, mutually hurting stalemates, peace-building, post-conflict development"

Elections as a Mechanism of Peace. The Cases of Liberia and The Central African Republic

"The paper analyses the normative and empirical capacity of elections to function as a peace mechanism in the early stages of the recovery period. Accordingly, the analysis is based on a theoretical framework that draws attention to the timing of elections in post-conflict societies. Moreover, in order to operationalize such theoretical aspects, the paper focuses on two relevant case studies: the 1997 elections in Liberia (perceived as post-conflict) and the 2020-2021 elections in The Central African Republic (early peace process – not void of conflict). Accordingly, the paper poses the following research questions: How was the prospect of organizing these rounds of election received by the parties involved in the conflict? How did these rounds of election relate to the peace process? Do elections represent an adequate mechanism to achieve positive peace in post-conflict societies? Keywords: elections, peace studies, post-conflict development, peace building, systemic violence."

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.

The Rise of China’s Developmental Peace: Can an Economic Approach to Peacebuilding Create Sustainable Peace?

ABSTRACT The rise of China’s international peace activities has brought new challenges to the notion and practice of peacebuilding. China employs a style of “developmental peace” in the developing countries of Asia and Africa. Developmental peace prioritises economic development without introducing change to the local government. This raises the question of whether or not a focus on economic development can create sustainable peace in post-conflict societies. We are in a transition period where China is leading a new style of peacebuilding. China, dissatisfied with the current norms in international peace, is trying to challenge and contest Western-dominated norms of peacebuilding. The question is, can China’s style of focusing mainly on addressing economic underdevelopment create sustainable peace in post-conflict societies?

The liberal peace and its contesting universal values: a theoretical approach to the development of hybrid forms of political order in post conflict societies

The Liberal Peace can be understood as a discourse and a framework which is constantly used by western countries in order to promote political stability in post-conflict societies. Embedded in the peacebuilding/peacekeeping operations, some liberal values are assumed to be the “only deal in town” to assist war-torn societies reaching political order. The present essay aims to analyze what are the theoretical principles embedded in the Liberal Peace assumptions and bring a critical approach which contests these universal values of implementing peace in transitioning societies. That being said, we can affirm that many values regarded as “universal” do not have much meaning to local societies in post-conflict states. The essay hence tries to look to an alternative perspective to build the peace in post-conflict societies: the hybrid peace. The Hybrid Peace assumption is an important approach which assumes that the local agency is a relevant actor on the promotion of peace in their respective communities, mainly in post-colonial states. Thus, the local actors have legitimacy and recognition of the society and can, therefore, promote and build peace along international interveners. The main objective of the present essay is to present a new approach to understand the peacebuilding projects and also recognize that different contexts need distinct approaches.
 
 
 Recebido em: agosto/2018.
 Aprovado em: abril/2019.

Women’s participation in peace processes: a review of literature

ABSTRACTWomen play a prominent role in bringing about peace in post-conflict societies. Several studies have found the systematic and representative inclusion of women in conflict resolution processes to significantly increase the chances of sustainable peace. However, women’s contribution to peace processes are often underemphasized or ignored in conflict management research and praxis. It was not until the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and seven other related resolutions that critical attention was given to women’s role in the peace process. This article provides an in-depth review of the literature on women’s contribution to conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The overall aim is to provide researchers and actors in the global peace market with a distillation of the salient studies and findings from research on women’s involvement in the peace process. Such an effort is necessary to bring together the sparse literature on women’s contribution to peace and to reveal existing gaps in the literature for future research.

Investing in peace: foreign direct investment as economic restoration in Sierra Leone?

In peace-building and transitional justice literature economic restoration is considered central to sustainable peace in post-conflict societies. However, it is also widely recognised that many post-conflict states cannot afford mechanisms to provide restoration. Not only are many such states poor to begin with, but violent conflict further degrades their economic capacity. As a result, in their need to provide jobs, generate tax revenues, spur development and promote sustainable peace, many post-conflict states turn to alternative processes of economic restoration. This paper examines the potential for foreign direct investment (FDI) to serve as one alternative means by which to provide economic restoration in post-conflict states. Presenting findings from six months of fieldwork evaluating one such project in rural Sierra Leone, the paper describes how local people experience such projects and explores whether employment and land-lease payments can provide experiences of economic restoration so far unforthcoming from the state.

Review of Learning from the Past - 20 years after the Bosnian war: Education for reconciliation and lasting peace in post-conflict societies summer school

The importance of the summer school and its topic can be seen from the location for the official opening ceremony: the Bosniak Institute in the old town of Sarajevo. Indeed, this institution was one of the sponsors of the summer school, along with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany (Sarajevo), the International Relations and Diplomacy Institute, Cultural Heritage Without Borders, and the International University of Sarajevo.

Tolerating Threat? The Independent Effects of Civil Conflict on Domestic Political Tolerance

Research on civil conflict focuses primarily on identifying underlying and proximate causes while leaving many questions of subsequent social consequences unanswered. Few studies have systematically examined how these conflicts affect public opinion, especially tolerance attitudes. Additionally, cross-national comparisons reveal significant differences in political tolerance levels but few explanations accounting for this variation. In this study, I bring together these disparate literatures and demonstrate the negative, independent effects of civil conflict on political tolerance levels across thirty-two countries. Examining data from the 1995–97 World Values Survey using several statistical techniques to ameliorate problems with endogeneity and multilevel data, I find that civil conflict dampens the public’s willingness to extend basic civil liberties to nonconformist groups. By assessing the extent of domestic intolerance generated by various forms of civil conflict, this study makes important contributions to existing literatures and, more importantly, identify another obstacle to sustained peace in postconflict societies.

Just keeping them busy? Youth employment projects as a peacebuilding tool

The promotion of youth employment is a popular peacebuilding measure in post-conflict settings. Giving jobs to young people is widely seen as an essential way to harness their energy towards constructive and peaceful purposes and discourage their recruitment for violence. Unlike traditional youth employment projects, these interventions set themselves a twofold objective: creating jobs and promoting peace in post-conflict societies. However, little is known about their impact on either of these fronts, and there is anecdotal evidence that youth employment projects in post-conflict settings have often fallen short of the expectations of donors, governments and beneficiaries alike. This article argues that the practice of using youth employment projects for peacebuilding is rooted in untested, problematic and possibly flawed assumptions, and this fundamentally affects the chance of success for such interventions.

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.

Electoral Systems and the Contest for Relative Group Status in Post-Conflict Societies: The Case of the 2009 Election in South Africa

Empirical support appears to be growing for the claimed effectiveness of proportional electoral systems in contributing to lasting peace in post-conflict societies. We raise two objections against this claim. Firstly, we argue that the theoretical rationale for this causal effect, as presented in consociational theory, is inadequate, in lacking a psychological mechanism for moderation. We argue that the capacity of constitutional arrangements to deliver parity of esteem amongst competing political groups should be added as a criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of constitutional rules in maintaining political stability. Secondly, we challenge the empirical claim that South Africa should be considered as an example which supports the argument for Party-list Proportional Representation (PR) as a conflict-regulating rule. Using data from the 2009 general election in South Africa to illustrate the nature of the engagement between ruling and opposition parties, we find that despite the entrenchment of the proportional electoral system, there is a disparity of esteem in political relationships. This necessitates a reconsideration of the purported value of PR as a conflict-regulating constitutional device.

International Criminal Courts as an Architect of Sustainable Peace in Post-Conflict Societies

The theory behind international law courts and tribunals has existed for some time however a vast cavity existed in their practical implementation. Their genesis arrived in the aftermath of World War II through the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. Since these post WWII trials newly created international institutions include the International Criminal Court (ICC, 2002), ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ICTR, 1994) and the former Yugoslavia (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ICTY, 1993) the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL, 2000) and a variety of hybrid panels or chambers.There is a sense that conducting more criminal trials in more provinces afflicted by atrocity will lead to more justice and peace, so long as those trials conform to due process standards. Criminal trials can serve to articulate and emphasize legal norms – typically human rights that were violated in contexts of civil war or oppression. In articulating and emphasizing such norms, criminal trials can serve as important steps toward the ending of a culture of impunity and the transition to a society based on the rule of law. They also derive legitimacy because, in the wake of atrocity, national institutions may be annihilated, corrupt, politicised, biased, or too insecure. Therefore there is an argument that international criminal courts can nurture the progression to sustainable peace in vulnerable post-conflict societies.

The UK, health and peace-building: the mysterious disappearance of Health as a Bridge for Peace

The problem of how to build peace in post-conflict societies continues to loom large for governments and development agencies worldwide. This article examines the involvement of the UK development community in the creation of the World Health Organization's ‘Health as a Bridge for Peace’ (HBP) programme. It argues that the new development policy context brought in by the United Kingdom Labour administration in 1997 appeared to provide fertile ground for health-sector initiatives such as these to become an important part of the UK's peace-building strategy, but that HBP in fact failed to take root. The role of individuals, the changing departmental focus of the Department for International Development (DFID), its relationship with WHO, and the absence of persuasive evidence for the efficacy of HBP are highlighted as being crucial in explaining the policy's mysterious disappearance.