Peace Region Research Articles

A Conceptual Analysis on ‘ASEAN Way’ as a Normative Approach for Conducting Regional Affairs

The role of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become more important in conducting regional affairs with its distinctive approach to interstate relations and regional cooperation. This distinctive practice is called as ‘ASEAN Way’ and the scholars assert that it is a pragmatic and informal approach to conduct intraregional affairs. As viewed by the scholars, what sets the ASEAN apart from many other regional institutions is its own process of decision-making, typically referred to as the “ASEAN Way’ (Weber, 2019). The ASEAN Way consists of a code of conduct for inter-state behavior as well as decision- making process based on consultations and consensus among its member states (Acharya, 1997). This ASEAN model or ‘ASEAN Way’ provides example of how a region can manage its problem and develop a positive identity in International Relations. Therefore, both in terms of intraregional and extra regional perceptions, Southeast Asia has become a symbol of a dynamic and largely peaceful region (Acharya, 2012). The central objective of this paper is to conceptualize the significance of ‘ASEAN Way’ as a distinctive approach to conduct regional affairs and highlight its implications for sustaining regional cooperation. The idea of ‘ASEAN Way’ is examined in this paper with specific reference to two important propositions. The first holds that ‘ASEAN Way’ is a normative approach to conduct intraregional affairs and it possess distinctive features compared to other regional practices. The second proposition holds that ‘ASEAN Way’ is potential as a mean for peaceful settlement of regional disputes. In order to realize these objectives, this study intends to answer these two research questions; what are the distinctive features of ‘ASEAN Way’ as an approach to conduct regional affairs and how it can be attributed as a peaceful mean for settling regional disputes. This study adopts a qualitative approach and primarily depends on the secondary data to answer the aforesaid research questions.

Treasures in the backyard: how a peaceful region can contribute to the study of international conflicts

Treasures in the backyard: how a peaceful region can contribute to the study of international conflicts

Memory Wars and Minority Rights: From Ethnic Conflict towards a Peace Region Alps-Adria?

Abstract Described as “the age of extremes” by historian Eric Hobsbawm, the 20th century was defined by heavily-contested borders and identities in Central Europe: politically, culturally, socially, and intellectually. With the end of World War I, communities found themselves in new nation- states, and the politics of assimilation and relations between minorities and their kinstates created tensions that continue to reverberate today. Using the Slovene minority in Austria as a case study, the article provides insight into two international projects that involve civil society actors in the field of memory politics and young people and their attitudes towards history and minorities. In drawing lessons from these initiatives dealing with troubled pasts to counteract current forms of exclusive identity politics, the article proposes that effective minority protection depends on a conductive social environment that allows for the reflection of opposing narratives stemming from ethnic conflict and acknowledges diversity as enrichment.

Neutrality or Involvement? World War II and Evolution of Foreign Policy Concepts of the Nordic Countries

In the middle of the 20th century a unique subsystem of international relations emerged in the Northern Europe, which has turned it into one of the stablest and most peaceful regions during the Cold War period. Nowadays, rising international tensions bring new relevance to the history lessons of World War II, its origins and aftermaths. The paper examines the evolution of the Nordic countries’ views on the issue of neutrality from mid-1930s to the end of 1940s. The first section considers the approaches of the Scandinavian countries to the establishment of a collective security system in the region in the interwar period. In that regard, the paper focuses on the Swedish project of the Northern defense alliance, which was aimed at deepening military cooperation between the states of the region and strengthening their ability to jointly deter any aggression as the best way to guarantee their neutrality. However, this project had not been implemented, because it faced both cool reactions from the leaders of Norway and Denmark and suspicion from the leading powers. According to the author, the fundamental reason for the failure of that project was that Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland sought support and protection from different, opposing great powers. The latter circumstance had also to a large extent predetermined the fate of the Scandinavian countries during the war years, when almost all of them were in one form or another involved in the conflict. The victory of the anti-Hitler coalition both opened new opportunities and posed new challenges for the states of the region: in the emerging bipolar world they rapidly turned into the subject matter of dispute of the superpowers. In these conditions, Sweden once again put forward the idea that in order to preserve peace in the region, the Nordic countries should be able to defend their neutrality and proposed the establishment of a Scandinavian Defense Union. In the final section, the paper examines the reaction to this project of the Scandinavian countries, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain. The author shows that although this reaction was more than restrained, and the project was not implemented, Sweden’s initiatives contributed to the creation of a unique security architecture in Northern Europe, where each state of the region had its own role with the neutral Sweden serving as a balancing force.

Streamflow depletion from groundwater pumping in contrasting hydrogeological landscapes: Evaluation and sensitivity of a new management tool

Groundwater pumping can reduce streamflow by reducing groundwater discharge and/or inducing streamflow infiltration, which together are referred to as streamflow depletion. Recently, analytical depletion functions (ADFs) have been suggested as rapid and accurate tools for streamflow depletion assessment, but their performance has only been tested in a few hydrogeological settings. To evaluate whether they will be useful tools for other regions with contrasting stream network and hydrogeological characteristics, we compared ADFs to calibrated MODFLOW models in BX Creek and Peace region with distinct hydrogeological settings (interior plateaus & highlands, and boreal plains, respectively) and spatial scales (165 km2 and 1952 km2, respectively) in British Columbia, Canada. Results showed that ADFs can accurately identify most affected streams by pumping for 100% and 83% of wells in the BX Creek and Peace region, respectively, and had small prediction errors compared with MODFLOW. Specifically, the mean absolute error of predicted depletion ranged from 2% to 14% of the highest simulated pumping rate over the study period of 30 years, with improved accuracy during the pumping season. We also found different responses of ADF performance to hydrostratigraphic properties such as hydraulic conductivity, aquifer thickness, streambed conductance, and well depth across two domains, indicating that different factors control ADF accuracy in different hydrogeological settings. Therefore, we conclude that ADFs are useful tools for conjunctive water management, but a good understanding of local hydrogeological conditions is needed to address the potential uncertainty of ADFs for decision-making.

Estimation of land-use/land-cover changes associated with energy footprints and other disturbance agents in the Upper Peace Region of Alberta Canada from 1985 to 2015 using Landsat data

Quantification of Land‐Use and Land‐Cover (LULC) changes associated with energy extraction footprints plays an important role in reclamation performance assessment, compliance monitoring, and sustainable land management practices. For regulatory planning and decision making purposes, it is crucial to understand the types and representation of disturbance present on the landscape related to energy footprints (i.e., oil, gas, and coal mining activities), non-energy footprints (i.e., other infrastructure), cutblocks, and wildfire. In this study, Landsat multispectral datasets were analysed using advanced classification and unmixing algorithms to calculate LULC changes associated with these disturbance agents from 1985 to 2015 in the Upper Peace Region, one of the major oil and gas exploration sites in Alberta, Canada. Based on 5-year intervals throughout this 30-year study, seven epochal LULC maps and a cumulative land disturbance map were produced with 82 % and 89 % overall accuracies, respectively, based on extensive and multisource, independent validation. Assessment of multiple disturbance regimes and time-series trajectories with high accuracies in this complex environment was vital to document and quantify disturbance, vegetation re-establishment, succession, and reclamation. Results indicate that more than 60 % forest loss (coniferous and deciduous) occurred due to harvesting and less than 20 % forest loss occurred due to energy and non‐energy footprints. An assessment of the current state showed 40–60 % of cutblocks and burned areas returned as immature forest and wetland and 15–20 % recovered to forest, accounting for successional processes that take time for the re-establishment of trees following disturbance. Out of total energy footprints, 8 % recovered as shrubland and 16 % recovered as forest, with almost no sign of vegetation recovery evident in non‐energy footprints (e.g., urban and long term industrial land use). The highest area of land disturbance (3412 km2) was over coniferous forest with 5-year disturbance areas of 55 km2, 65 km2, 70 km2, and 295 km2, associated with, respectively, wildfire, energy development, non‐energy footprints, and harvesting. This type of LULC investigation informs land‐use threshold management for energy footprints by identifying and partitioning key disturbance agents into land use. Knowledge of change type and land use enables insights on long term implications of the changes present and serves to guide sustainable development, environmental protection, and informing forward looking land use future state simulations.

Propensity for fugitive gas migration in glaciofluvial deposits: An assessment of near-surface hydrofacies in the Peace Region, Northeastern British Columbia

Petroleum resource development has generated a global legacy of millions of active and decommissioned energy wells. Associated with this legacy are concerns about wellbore integrity failure and leakage of fugitive gas into groundwater and atmosphere. The fate of fugitive gas in the shallow subsurface is controlled by sediment heterogeneity, hydrostratigraphy and hydraulic connectivity. We characterized the shallow subsurface at a site in northeastern British Columbia, Canada; a region of extensive petroleum resource development. We collected 13 core profiles, 9 cone-penetrometer profiles, 58 sediment samples and 4 electrical resistivity profiles. At the site, a ~ 12 m thick layer of low-permeability diamict (10−8 m/s) overlays a more permeable (10−6 - 10−4 m/s) but highly heterogeneous sequence of glacigenic sand, clay and silt. We develop a conceptual hydrostratigraphic model for fluid flow in this system in the context of fugitive-gas migration. Driven by buoyancy forces, free-phase gas will move upward through discontinuous permeable zones within the Quaternary sediments, until it encounters lower permeability interbeds where it will pool, flow laterally or become trapped and dissolve into flowing groundwater. The vertical extent of gas migration will be significantly limited by the relatively continuous overlying diamict, a feature common across the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. However, intra-till lenses observed embedded within the diamict may provide pathways for gas to move vertically towards ground surface and into the atmosphere. This study provides one of the few investigations examining geological and hydrogeological heterogeneity in the shallow subsurface at scales relevant to gas migration. For glaciated regions with similar surficial geology, such as Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, gas that is released into the subsurface from an energy wellbore, below a surface diamict, will likely migrate laterally away from the wellbore, and be inhibited from reaching ground surface and emitting to atmosphere.

Particularly neglected in countries with other challenges: High Toxoplasma gondii seroprevalence in pregnant women in Kabul, Afghanistan, while a low proportion know about the parasite.

Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic parasitic disease of global importance. It is widespread and endemic practically all over the world, with infection prevalence varying by geographic location. The parasite and the disease are neglected, which is illustrated by the lack of baseline information on the prevalence from many regions. Developed, peaceful regions are in better situation to address toxoplasmosis, while the neglected status is particularly pronounced in regions with other challenges. Due to the lack of baseline data, these regions are rarely mentioned in discussions about the neglected status of the disease. A dramatic manifestation of toxoplasmosis, congenital toxoplasmosis, is the dreaded outcome of vertical transmission of the infection from the mother to the unborn child. For this reason, pregnant women are a key target group for primary prevention of T. gondii infections, and baseline data on the prevalence in pregnant women is important. In this cross-sectional seroepidemiological study, we estimated Toxoplasma gondii seroprevalence and evaluated possible risk factors for seropositivity in pregnant women in Kabul, Afghanistan. Altogether 207 of the 431 women included in the study tested positive for immunoglobulin G antibodies against T. gondii, yielding an apparent seroprevalence estimate of 48.03% (95% CI 43.33–52.75). Based on the final multivariable model for T. gondii seropositivity, non-concrete floor in the house and well or river as water source were identified as risk factors for seropositivity, while residence in rural area was a protective factor. The majority of the participants (72.9%) reported that they did not know about T. gondii. Our study is the first to report an estimate of T. gondii seroprevalence in pregnant women in Afghanistan. The high seroprevalence indicates substantial infection pressure, and the results of the risk factor analysis suggest that the environmental route, infection from oocysts, might be the most relevant to address to prevent the infections in the region. Our results contribute to the global discussion on neglected status of toxoplasmosis.

The Onset of Civil War: Combining Various Scholarly Research Methods to Arrive at A Single, Unified Explanation of Why Civil Wars Occur

Historically, Southeast Asia has been among the most peaceful regions of the world. In the last sixty years, however, the populations of Southeast Asia have been torn apart by ravaging civil wars. What could be causing the high number of ethno-religious civil wars in Southeast Asia? To understand this, I use three different methods, two of which I have already employed in previous researches—quantitative (statistical) and traditional case studies. The third, using personal interviews with direct participants of conflict, is the focus of this study. This, combined with the results obtained from the other two methods, will highlight the causes of civil wars in Southeast Asia. While a number of studies have attempted to answer the race-religion-civil war nexus puzzle (none have used all three methods—quantitative, traditional case studies, and personal interviews), and none has specifically addressed Southeast Asian civil wars using all three methods.

Investigating the hydraulic role of a large buried valley network on regional groundwater flow

An understanding of the three-dimensional hydrostratigraphic architecture of a buried valley network, in particular the continuity of permeable units within their fill, is needed to evaluate the resource potential and role of buried valley aquifers in regional groundwater flow. In this study, a facies modeling algorithm within the exploration and production software Petrel was used to construct a geological model of a buried valley network located in the central Peace Region in Northeast British Columbia, Canada. Facies were interpreted using resistivity inversion results from an airborne electromagnetic survey (SkyTEM) and borehole gamma-ray and lithology logs. This detailed geological model and a simplified geological model of the buried valley network were used to develop two interpretive numerical groundwater flow models in MODFLOW. Calibration was performed using baseflow estimates derived using a novel approach whereby upper and lower bounds for baseflow indices were combined with streamflow estimates from the Northeast Water Tool (NEWT), a hydrological modeling tool developed for water allocation for industrial use by the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission. The modeling results suggest that permeable deposits exist within the buried valleys, but are not regionally connected throughout the whole network, and thus do not play a significant role in the regional groundwater flow regime. However, locally extensive permeable deposits occur within the buried valleys and may offer viable water sources for domestic use or to replace existing surface-water licenses for industrial use.

Violence and Justice in UNASUR’s Institutional History. From the Early Optimism to the Fragile Cooperation Combating Criminality

This paper aims to understand how the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has worked (or not) to promote policies to make progress in the fight against crime, criminal justice and citizen security in the period between 2012 and 2017. Although South America is regarded as a peaceful region by some researchers when it comes to interstate conflict, when looking at intrastate violence the region may be viewed as one of the most violent in the world. In this context, it is crucial to understand the role of regional organizations. Our work was grounded on the documental analysis of 34 minutes and official documents of the South American Council on Public Security, Justice and Coordination of Actions against Transnational Organized Crime (CSSCJDOT) of UNASUR. The results demonstrate that the CSSCJDOT was an innovation in bringing the debate of crime and violence to a regional organization, but its initial promises have not been fulfilled because of political changes in key member states, the excess of normativism in UNASUR and because of the crisis the organization currently undergoes.

Advancing knowledge of gas migration and fugitive gas from energy wells in northeast British Columbia, Canada

AbstractPetroleum resource development is creating a global legacy of active and inactive onshore energy wells. Unfortunately, a portion of these wells will exhibit gas migration (GM), releasing fugitive gas (FG) into adjacent geologic formations and overlying soils. Once mobilized, FG may traverse the critical zone, impact groundwater, and emit to the atmosphere, contributing to greenhouse‐gas emissions. Understanding of GM and FG has increased in recent years but significant gaps persist in knowledge of (1) the incidence and causes of GM, (2) subsurface baseline conditions in regions of development required to delineate GM and FG, and (3) the migration, impacts, and fate of FG. Here we provide an overview of these knowledge gaps as well as the occurrence of GM and FG as currently understood in British Columbia (BC), Canada, a petroleum‐producing region hosting significant reserves. To address the identified knowledge gaps within BC, the Energy and Environment Research Initiative (EERI) at the University of British Columbia is implementing several field‐focused research projects including: (1) statistical analyses of regulatory data to elucidate the incidence and causes of GM, (2) characterization of regional hydrogeology and shallow subsurface conditions in the Peace Region of the Montney resource play, and (3) investigation of the migration, impacts, and fate of FG in the shallow subsurface through controlled natural‐gas release. Together, the EERI investigations will advance understanding of GM and FG, provide scientific data that can inform regulations, and aid development of effective monitoring and detection methodologies for BC and beyond. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Crop rotations compared with continuous canola and wheat for crop production and fertilizer use over 6 yr

Local economic, logistic, soil, and weather conditions have made appropriate rotations vary from one area to another. Seed yield and fertilizer use in rotations were compared with continuous cropping for 6 yr in the southeast Peace region of Alberta, Canada. Canola (C) (Brassica napus L.), wheat (W) (Triticum aestivum L.), pea (P) (Pisum sativum L.), barley (B) (Hordeum vulgare L.), and flax (F) (Linum usitatissimum L.) were grown in 12 treatments [i.e., continuous canola (CC) and wheat (WW) and rotations of W–C, P–W–W, C–W–W, C–C–W, P–C–W, C–P–W, W–B–C, B–W–C, F–W–C, and F–C–W]. Canola yield increased with 1 or 2 yr breaks from canola. Within rotations, there was a trend to lower canola yield on canola stubble compared with other crop stubbles. Wheat yield was generally lower in WW than in rotations. Among rotations, wheat yield tended to be greater on pea stubble compared with canola, wheat, barley, and flax stubbles. Averaged over 2010–2015, the canola yield benefit from rotations was 0.632 Mg ha−1 (19.4%) over CC and the wheat yield benefit from rotations was 0.313 Mg ha−1 (7.2%) over WW. Nitrogen saving was observed when pea was included in rotation.

Identification of Solar Activities Based on Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase

Solar image consists of obvious regions of solar activities and peaceful regions of no activity. Identifying effective solar active areas from solar image is a typical application of image-processing technology in astronomical research. Benefiting from real-time solar observation data provided by Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase (HEK) of Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), this paper presents a method of solar activity identification based on HEK. In this method, we gather data of six kinds of solar activities (time, location, and area) and establish a multiscale transformation model for the full-disk solar image of the corresponding time. Combining both location data and area data, we design different gradient thresholds to segment different solar activities’ regions. Two kinds of boundary-identification methods are used to locate and recognize solar activities’ regions, respectively. Furthermore, we study the correlation of the characteristic parameters (six kinds of solar activities’ data) of solar image and get the best combination of the characteristic parameters of each solar activity. The method in the paper provides precise positioning and efficient identification of solar activities, which lays the foundation for further work. In addition to that, extracting specific combination of features from different solar activities’ regions can provide a feasible way to build a streamlined image feature set for content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems.

Taxonomy of interstate conflicts: is South America a peaceful region?

This article revisits theoretical efforts to classify interstate conflicts. It analyses South America and discuss the adequacy of influential interpretations about the intensity of interstate conflicts in the region as compared to global or other regions ones. The literature takes for granted that South America is a peaceful region. Such interpretation results from the indicators adopted. We argue that traditional indicators do not fully capture latent tensions and the actual level of conflicts in the region. The article suggests an alternative taxonomy that better fits the South America context and argues that a research agenda on the extent and nature of interstate conflics is needed.

289 Evaluating cover crop cocktails for forage production in the Peace region of Alberta

289 Evaluating cover crop cocktails for forage production in the Peace region of Alberta

Evropski sistem regionalne bezbednosti - perspektive daljeg razvoja

The transnational and asymmetric character of contemporary challenges, risks and threats to security have led to the fact that security is indivisible nowadays. There is no country in the world that is capable of independently solving the problems of preserving and strengthening security. In contemporary international relations, when defining the concept of defense and security, the principle of reliance on one's own forces has been often replaced - expanded by membership in one of the defense and security organizations. Despite numerous religious, territorial conflicts and wars, including two world wars, and the fact that during the last five centuries it has been the epicenter of armed conflict, Europe is nowadays one of the world's most peaceful regions. The system of collective security in Europe created after the Second World War greatly minimizes the possible development of crisis and conflict in the region. However, one should not ignore military and political tensions in the region, international terrorism, religious and ethnic extremism, illegal migration and the deficit of energy resources. The key challenge in front of every European country is not only to protect its own security based on national interests, but above all, collective security within the European Union and in Europe as the whole. Such a system should be both organized and maintained in constant 'readiness' for direct engagement and development over a longer period, which requires certain material, human and financial resources.

Brazil: analysis of a rising soft power

Rising powers gain economic and political clout and challenge the post-Cold War world order. Located in a relatively peaceful region away from global conflict zones, Brazil has fought no war with its neighbours in 150 years, and with limited military capabilities, Brazil differs from its BRICS peers as a non-militarised emerging power. Based on Nye’s soft power concept, this article examines Brazil’s soft power characteristics (preference for diplomacy, peaceful conflict resolution, use of force as a last resort; actions as agenda-setter, bridge-builder, Southern interests’ supporter, pro-multilateralism, etc.). This paper compares Brazil’s role conception to its role performance to conclude that Brazil projects itself as a soft power broker.

Distribution and community structure of chloropid flies (Diptera: Chloropidae) in Nearctic glacial and post‐glacial grasslands

Abstract Arthropod species inhabiting disjunct xeric grasslands in the Yukon Territory, Canada may be relicts of Pleistocene steppe assemblages widespread in Beringia during glaciation, or they may be recent remnants of northward expansion of southern grassland communities during the early‐Holocene Hypsithermal. To assess the likely origin of the Yukon grassland arthropod community, grassland‐associated Chloropidae (Diptera) were compared from three regions: the Canadian Prairies, the Peace River region of Alberta and the southern Yukon. If Yukon grassland insect communities, like those in the Peace region, result primarily from northward dispersal during the Hypsithermal, chloropid assemblages in all regions would be similar, except that species richness would decline with increasing latitude. If, however, they are primarily relicts of Pleistocene steppe communities, Yukon chloropid assemblages would be distinct from southern assemblages. There was a latitudinal gradient of decreasing species richness and Yukon assemblages were distinct from Prairie and Peace region assemblages, based on cluster analysis, non‐metric multidimensional scaling and pairwise comparisons of Morisita similarity indices. Community‐level analyses suggest that Yukon assemblages have been separated from those in the Prairies and Peace regions since before the Hypsithermal and likely contain a mix of relict populations inhabiting Pleistocene steppe remnants in East Beringia with recent northward post‐glacial dispersal from the southern Prairies. Dispersal from eastern Russia via Beringia appears to have been negligible.

Does Amnesty Programme in Niger Delta have Economic Benefit to Nigeria?

The Niger Delta is said to be the world’s largest wetland and the fourth largest ethnic group in Nigeria. The oil and gas in that region represents 97% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings and this accounts for a major chunk of the wealth of the country. The region has for some years been the site of major confrontations between the people and the Nigerian government’s security forces, resulting in extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions, and draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. To proffer solution, Federal government came up with Post-amnesty Programme. Based on this, the study sought to: (i) determine the economic benefits of Post-amnesty Progromme to Nigeria. (ii) Determine the level of effectiveness of the implementation of the Post Amnesty Progrmme since its inception in 2009. The research design was descriptive survey method. The population of the study was 4,798,519 million youths [15-39years][last Census2006] in Delta State, Bayelsa State and Rivers State. The study made use of qualitative and quantitative data analyses. The sample size was 400 using Taro Yamane formula. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents in each of the states. A pilot study was conducted using split-half method and tested with Spearman Brown. Validity of instruments was measured using content validity .The One-Sample Kolmogorv-Smirnov (Z) test is used in testing the hypothesis: Amnesty programme does not have economic benefits to the Nigeria. (Zcal = 4.930 > Zcritical = 1.96, p < 0.05). This result is significant as p-value of 0.00 < 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis accepted accordingly. Hence, Amnesty programme does have economic benefits to Nigeria. It concluded that is only in peaceful regions that meaningful collaboration and developments can take place, as well as investment and development. Where its recommendation is for the Federal government to engage in equitable distribution of resources in the country and elimination of bureaucracy such as: corruption, dehumanization, marginalization, and underdevelopment and deprivation.