Peacemaking Process Research Articles

The Pathway To Peace And Harmony: A Buddhist Perspective

Buddhism has long been recognized as a non-violent, peaceful philosophy and religion. The suggested study aims to illustrate the Buddhist concept of harmony and serenity through a journey. Through the theory of dependent origination, Buddha preached that everything exists in relation to another and so do we human beings and our reactions to others depend on these factors and evils arising out of ignorance. The paper tries to examine the possibility of how global peace and harmony can also be accomplished through this dependency on ourselves as well as others in society. Buddha speaks of various causes of violence especially those arising within the human mind out of ignorance and false understanding of ourselves and our self-constructed world-views. Buddha also gives ways to tackle these violent forces within the individual and without. These have the potential to lead us to the pathways of realization of peace and harmony. Buddha is an exemplary visioner, practitioner and peacemaker; the Buddhist philosophy has contributions to the peace-making process while holding the potential to promote peace and harmony as a way of life through self-examination and self-reflection. In addition to the five precepts, they plant seeds and provide stability and footing for responding to oneself and others with kindness, love, affection, empathic delight, and serenity. This will result in a new way of thinking, believing, behaving, and living. As human behavior changes, the world around shall also respond accordingly and the attainment of peace and harmony becomes a reality. The peaceful means suggested by Buddha and emphasis on a holistic framework for all of mankind and to be practiced every moment of one’s existence, Buddhist philosophy plays a vital role in the peace and harmony-oriented paradigm having a practical outlook and impacting human lives globally.

Peran Perempuan Dalam Penyelesaian Konflik Dusun Ory Pada Negeri Pelauw dengan Negeri Kariu Kabupaten Maluku Tengah

resolving the conflict berween Ory Hamlet, Pelauw State and Kariu State. This research was carried oud in Ory Hamlet, Pelauw State and Kariu State. Primary data collection techniques were carried out through interviews with a number of informant who were considered to be involved in the process of resolving the conflict between Ory Hamlet, Pelauw State and Kariu State.The results of this research show that so far in conflicts, women and children have only been considered victims, even though the informal effoots made by women have also made a positive contribution to the peacemaking process. However, in formal spaces, women’s involvement I very minimal, because they are not in strategic positions in the leadersip structure.

For the sake of Venezuela: Power-Sharing mechanism challenges and opportunities

This essay examines Venezuelan political elite behavior and how decisionmakers might contemplate power-sharing as a means to restore the nation-state. The article delves into the challenges and prospects of adopting power-sharing as a strategy not only for peacekeeping but also, crucially, peace-making processes. Starting with an overall assessment of Venezuelan democracy, the paper identifies factors that may hinder consociational democracy. It then analyzes sociopolitical elements favoring autocracy and partitocracy before discussing current challenges and opportunities for effective power-sharing. It highlights the role of Venezuelan elites and the persistent issue of elite non-circulation as critical factors in the ongoing political deadlock. Additionally, it explores the relationship between democracy, state-building, and the impact of autocratization

Peacemaking through the lens of participation: Revisiting the 2016 Colombian peace accord

AbstractHow should we analyze democratic participation mechanisms created to end a civil war? This article examines participation in the design and ratification of Colombia's 2016 peace settlement. By analyzing theoretical participation approaches and reviewing official reports, proceedings, and formal rules engendered by the peacemaking, we consider the ways in which the stakeholders participated to formalize the agreement between the government and rebels in the Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia–People's Army. The case argues that inclusion does not necessarily mean control of civil society over the peacemaking process; the participation of the political society and insurgency groups is a precondition.

EU’s Actorness in the South Caucasus: Uneasy Alliance of NormativeE Power with Conflict Resolution and Peace-Building

The success of the EU in the South Caucasus region is limited due to the lack of insufficient commitment, inefficient tools, lack of comprehensive policy design taking into account the needs and priorities of the regional actors. The EU seems to restore its image and increase its visibility in the region after the II. Karabakh War in 2020. Post-war geopolitical context necessitates a durable security-building as a result of a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The EU’s efforts show that it is in the process of re-defining a pro-active role in shaping the meditation and peace-making processes. The outcome will not only determine the nature of the EU’s involvement into the region but also the efficiency of its normative power in the future.

Interwoven Models of Peacemaking – the Israeli-Palestinian Case and Beyond

ABSTRACT Two competitive approaches are dominant in the debate about the optimal strategy to cope with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Conflict-Management and Conflict-Resolution. This paper suggests looking at them as complementary. It presents four models of peacemaking. The first, the Strong Leader Model, involves drastic unilateral initiatives taken by one of the parties. The second, the Social Reformer Model, encourages domestic reforms within each of the parties. The third, the Political Elite Model, offers various forms of diplomatic interactions and is the dominant experience in Middle East peace processes. The fourth, the Public Assembly Model, proposes the creation of a major Israeli-Palestinian Public Negotiating Congress, based on the multiparty talks used in South Africa and Northern Ireland during the 1990s. This paper concludes that a multifaceted approach, which uses insights from all models in an integrated fashion, has the potential to create a momentum for a revolutionary peacemaking process.

Modicum Chains of Peace-Making Process, Truth and Restorative Justice as a Factor for Conflict Reconciliation

Peace is a continuing practice, it therefore required that conflicts be addressed in relation to specific situation that exist in a society. Response to conflict therefore requires thoughtful actions. It is a mutual process. Peace is a major component of conflict reconciliation. This paper evaluates the peculiarity of peace building strategy, integrated framework for peace building as well as justice as a factor of reconciliation. It dismisses the popular notion of operational challenges for peace mission. The paper instead opines that there is capacity building in peace building process which encourage economic peace building target. The method used was empirical by contacting textbooks and relevant journals. The paper arrives at the conclusion that, restorative justice is veritable factor of conflict reconciliation.

The Spaces of Local Agreements: Towards a New Imaginary of the Peace Process

ABSTRACT This article examines when, how and why local agreements are used to end violent conflict, drawing on a new global dataset of local agreements. It provides a typology of security functions that local agreements deliver at different stages of the conflict-to-peace cycle, and the types of space they address and create. It examines the relationship of local agreements to national peacemaking processes, arguing that they reveal the nested nature of local, national, transnational, and international conflict in protracted conflict settings. This reality points to the need for a new political imaginary for peace processes design. The conclusion sketches its contours.

Peace Conceptual Metaphor Analysis in the Afghanistan Peacemaking Process - Case Study: Afghanistan Peace Map

In this research, we have used the descriptive-analytic method. The main purpose of this paper is to show the reflection and perception of the peace conceptual metaphor in Afghanistan's discourse space on the basis of "conceptual metaphor theory." Humans typically reflect on concrete or more physical things, according to this linguistic theory. The findings of this study show that the country's peace-making operatives reflected the abstract and nonphysical concept of peace on a variety of concrete and physical things. For example, on the basis of the "Afghanistan Peace Map" context, the peace abstract concept is reflected on the experimental and objective concepts, like: "journey", "structure", and "live objects." Therefore, the conceptual metaphors of "peace is journey", "peace is structure" and "peace is live objects" are the three more prevalent concepts that are reflected in this context. These metaphors are not only more prevalent and user-friendly in the context of the "Afghanistan peace map," but research into published contexts in the Afghanistan peace-making process reveals that these metaphors flowed in the substructure of all peace contexts.

Women In the Peace Palace - A Study of Elections to the International Court of Justice Between 2011-2021

The United Nations is an important organisation which provides a platform for the member states to discuss issues pertaining to conflicts, peace resolution, betterment of humanity and sustainability of the environment. It works with the help of its organs and various agencies. The International Court of Justice is one such important organ that came into being in 1946, seated in the Palace of Justice, Hague, Netherlands. It is the judicial arm of the UN and advisory in nature to bring pacific settlement of disputes brought before it, and violation of human rights in accordance with international law. Women play an important role in dispute resolution and the peacemaking process. UN advocates for the gender equality and enhanced presence of women in national and international bodies and urged the member states to work towards reduction of gender inequality and promoting women at decision making level. But one of its important organs presents a sorrowful picture. Since inception, the international court of Justice has never ever seen women judges surpassing their male counterparts. The present study has been undertaken to see the election pattern for male and female judges.

Managing the Menace of Cattle Rustling and Banditry in North Rift Kenya: The Role of Pokot Women

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to create a discourse surrounding women role in combating cattle rustling and banditry in north rift, Kenya. The article underscores that Pokot women play key roles in instigating cattle rustling and banditry in the north rift region. While media generally perceive women as passive bystanders, it projects men as the protagonists and antagonists during conflict. The thinking that women are only victims of conflicts, just because of the biases in reporting by the media, needs to be critically looked into.
 Methodology: The study relied on secondary sources where information from books, journals, periodicals and online opens sources was acquired before deep content analysis was carried and presented in prose.
 Findings: The study found that although women bear the brunt of conflicts as the post-Cold War examples clearly show, they are not always on the receiving end. Thus, the suffering that women go through because of conflicts has made them become active participants in such fights. While the article conceded that there are several other causal factors accounting for cattle rustling in the north rift, it finds that the role of Pokot women in fuelling livestock theft is a crucial one.
 Recommendation: The article recommended to policy makers that, if meaningful and sustainable peace is to be made in the north rift, they should consider engaging Pokot women in the peacemaking processes.

Disseminating the living story: promoting youth awareness of Lebanon contested heritage

ABSTRACT This article introduces an intervention framework to build the capacity of Lebanese youth to participate in effectively preserving Beirut’s heritage. Despite the current sectarian politics, enabling the youth to voice their narratives of the lived everyday contestation could herald their substantial contribution to the city’s urban reconciliation and peace-making process with the past. Through interviews and focus groups within the wider academic community, NGOs, and activists in Lebanon, the youth reflected on their interpretations of contestation and which elements of the local contested heritage are authentic. We argue that such authenticity is gained through lived space and experience, as we engage with emerging work that grasps authenticity as a subject of performance, negotiation, and experience.

A New Paradigm of Home-Mapping for Literary Cartography

A New Paradigm of Home-Mapping for Literary Cartography

When Do Mediators Say “No”? The Case of American Resistance to Mediating the Gulf Diplomatic Crisis

When do mediators say “no” and refuse to manage an escalating conflict, even if they meet all of the prerequisites for jumpstarting a peacemaking process? Empirical studies to date have focused primarily on factors that facilitate the start of mediation efforts. Surprisingly, very little is known about the reasons that motivate third parties' refusal to engage. Working against the backdrop of conceptual frameworks that indicate when mediators say “yes,” this article offers a novel framework for analysis that explicates three conditions that dissuade third parties from mediating. Using the case of the U.S. resistance to mediate the Gulf diplomatic crisis, the article shows that mediators will refuse to mediate conflicts that are characterized by high levels of power symmetry, pronounced structural linkage with conflicting parties, and extensive strategic interests in the conflict‐affected area.

Engendering civicness in the Syrian peacemaking process

ABSTRACT This article explores the evolution, role and impact of the Civil Society Support Room (CSSR), the first formal mechanism to involve civil society in the UN-led political talks for Syria. Through surveys, focus groups and interviews, it examines how and whether the CSSR influenced the peace process. Importantly, it also illustrates how the CSSR transformed the participants and third-party mediators themselves, suggesting that it shapes the conflict and peace-making landscape beyond the high-level political process. It argues that the CSSR had a transformative impact on both the attitudes and behavioural patterns of the participants themselves, while also challenging the dominant representations of the conflict that strengthen the power of conflict actors and shape international action. Even if the UN failed to successfully mediate a political agreement, the paper demonstrates how an inclusive and more independent mechanism can inject the logic of civicness. This can be seen in the design of the Constitutional Committee, in actions taken to broaden inclusivity, and in the changing discourse of political actors.

Expanding Ripeness Beyond Push and Pull: The Relevance of Mutually Enticing Opportunities (MEOs)

Building on the existing notions of ‘push and pull’ in ripeness theory—the perceptions of a Mutually Hurting Stalemate (MHS) and of a Way Out (WO)—this article aims to explore a less scrutinized third element which proves to be essential for ripeness to achieve its full potential: the perception of Mutually Enticing Opportunities (MEO). While the MHS has the capacity to disincentivize the conflicting parties from further pursuing confrontational strategies, and the WO may embolden them to explore negotiations as a viable alternative, neither one guarantees that what is negotiated will be sufficiently attractive for the parties to truly commit to the peacemaking process and see the negotiated agreement come through and make it endure in time. This article will provide conceptual clarity about the MEOs, by surveying four essential characteristics that need to exist for an opportunity to be truly mutually enticing: mutuality, exclusivity, interdependency, and cooperation. Furthermore, building on Zartman’s earlier work on MEOs, the article will expound procedural and substantive elements that ‘lock-in’ the parties into the peacemaking process, by having their needs, interests and demands fulfilled by newly formulated solutions.

(Re)thinking homegrown peace mechanisms for the resolution of conflicts in Northern Ghana

ABSTRACT The protracted chieftaincy conflict in Dagbon in the Northern Region of Ghana was recently resolved through an interplay of formal and informal resolution mechanisms, where the latter dominated the peace-making process with home-grown peace mechanisms. In the past, the state through formal liberal peace mechanisms like the law courts, committees and commissions of inquiry, interventions by NGOs/CSOs and peacekeeping operations failed to resolve the conflict. However, through the state support in the use of indigenous peace mechanisms by a Committee of Eminent Chiefs (CEC), a resolution of the conflict was made possible by the adoption of this hybrid dispute resolution mechanism. This article examines how the Dagbon conflict was resolved using a home-grown peace mechanism, the eminent peace approach. Drawing on related secondary data, we argue that empowering traditional leaders and strengthening home-grown conflict resolution mechanisms can play a pivotal role in resolving non-state conflicts. This article contributes to the hybrid peace literature that centres around the call for local-state collaboration in conflict resolution.

A group psychoanalytic approach to the analysis of peacemakers' practice

AbstractPeacemakers dealing with violent conflicts are often exposed to stressors that are detrimental to the peacemaking process. Such stressors hinder performance and challenge the peacemakers' professional identity and identifications, both consciously and unconsciously. Moreover, peacemakers may risk contamination by the “radioactive,” traumatic elements of the violence inherent in the bellicose situations they deal with at the peace table. They may become “crypt carriers” of expulsed mourning and denied lost objects. In this study, I elaborate on whether a group psychoanalytic approach to analyzing peacemakers' practice can offer mediators the space to explore, elaborate on, and symbolize the unconscious dynamics underlying their practice. Having such a space can help them perform the psychic “work of trauma,” and shield or decontaminate them and their practice from the “radioactive” effect of the potentially traumatic elements of their profession. Such an approach can provide peacemakers with a complementary tool for developing their practice.

The place and the role of sport in the war-torn society of Afghanistan

For Afghanistan, security is one of the last things the country can be associated with. Despite the efforts that have been made over the last decade, it is still too early to speak about political, economic, and institutional stability. Against this background of uncertainty, and despite the lack of legislation, funding, and investment tools, Afghanistan's flag is being played in the finals of many international events. Тhis is the phenomenon that provokes our research interest. The present aims to give a brief overview of the country's national sporting achievements and to examine the views of two key experts in the field to identify how the development of sport in the country influences the peace-making processes from a social perspective. The used methodology includes a semi-structured interview conducted independently with both respondents in 2019 which is analyzed in the context of social reconstruction of a war-torn society. The results show that national success in elite international sports events has a high potential to be an effective tool in neutralizing some of the negative social effects of war on the society (like distancing, hatred, identity restructuring, etc.) by bringing hope, creating role models, changing perceptions, uniting people under one flag, creating heroes.

The calculus of peace and conflict: a contractualist perspective

PurposeIntractable conflict is a long-time violent and self-perpetuating crisis. The peacemaking revolution has the potential to stop the destructive dynamic of the conflict. The purpose of this paper is to present a contractualist model of a peacemaking revolution and its theoretical foundations. It analyzes the revolutionary peacemaking process in Northern Ireland during the 1990s in light of the contractualist model.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a contractualist model to describe the interplay between leaders (policymakers) and people (public opinion) and its impact on the strategy to cope with situations of intractable conflict. The paper includes theoretical background and a case study analysis.FindingsThe peacemaking revolution is a process of dynamic equilibrium between peacemaking policy and public expectations for change. It progresses from one point of equilibrium to the next.Originality/valueThe paper intends to add a fresh perspective to the study of the peacemaking revolution, in general, and the interplay between peacemaking policy and public support in particular. It points out that a consensus-building process, which combines political-elite diplomacy and public diplomacy, has the potential to create the conditions for a peacemaking revolution. Political-elite diplomacy offers diplomatic channels for leaders to begin a peace process, support it and conclude agreements. Public diplomacy offers instruments to involve the people in the peacemaking efforts, prepare them for a change and motivate the leaderships to conclude agreements.