Peacemaking Efforts Research Articles

Making Peace with God: What Place for Religion in United Nations Mediation?

ABSTRACT As representatives of the chief global peacemaking body, United Nations (UN) mediators are often deployed to conflict contexts where religion is important to warring parties. However, religion is largely absent from the academic and policy literature on UN mediation. In response, this study systematically explores the place of religion in UN mediation policy. To consider the extent to which religious issues, actors, values, norms, and identities inform the work of UN mediators, I thematically analyse all publicly available UN mediation guidance resources. I find that religion holds a more meaningful position in UN mediation than the literature suggests, and that the UN has taken positive steps to promote religious sensitivity among its mediators. However, the guidance is less clear as to how religion matters in conflict spaces, and my analysis reveals that religion tends to be understood in a tribal and depoliticized way. This view offers a reductive reading of the multiple and complex roles that religion plays across conflict environments, which may limit the success of UN peacemaking efforts. My findings highlight the importance of adequately understanding the role of worldviews and normative dispositions in spaces where the UN mediates, including, but not limited to, religion.

Reading China's Global Security Initiative Through an International Legal Lens

Closely related to China's response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Global Security Initiative (‘GSI’) has attracted attention to its vision on the current international legal order. This essay examines three major themes of the GSI through an international legal lens: common security, sovereign equality and the amorphous idea of ‘legitimate security interest’. Firstly, it highlights the risk that the notion of common security and the related emphasis on ‘major countries’ relationship in the GSI could be abused to justify state oppression of domestic population or major countries’ domination over ‘minor countries’ and proposes a reading to limit these concepts to promoting peace-making efforts led by states, particularly ‘major countries’, with cascading effects on other countries in conflicts. Secondly, it argues that the GSI's re-emphasis on sovereign equality usefully counters unilateralism and should be interpreted not retrospectively to avoid accountability but prospectively to combat impunity for serious violations of international law. Thirdly, it argues that while the notion of legitimate security interest may be irrelevant to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations, it could be a useful consideration in discharging states’ obligation to settle international disputes peacefully.

Peacekeeping Efforts of the Organisation of African Unity in the Chadian Conflict of 1979–1987 Based on OAU Documents

This paper studies the role the Organisation of African Unity played in the Chadian conflict (civil war and Libyan intervention) resolution process between 1979 and 1987. It focuses on the analysis of documents deriving from this organisation devoted to the matter in concern. Special attention is paid to the determining of the stages of OAU peacekeeping development and evolution in Chad, highlighting the differences among participant states in their approaches to conflict resolution and particular political forces involved in the conflict and partially reflecting the Cold War context. Emphasis is put on the matters of the extent to which the war in Chad was influenced by the global context of a standoff between the West and the Socialist blocs, the transformation of external actors’ policies towards Chad during the conflict, and the impact these changes had on the success of the peace-making efforts. The events in focus are the first case of a peacekeeping operation mandated and fielded largely by Africa’s key integration organisation as its track record significantly determined the further development of African peacekeeping efforts. Today this experience is crucial to the modern African Union and other relevant regional structures’ peacekeeping operations. The paper relies on a complex of general historic methods related to the introduction, analysis, and structuring of new information deriving from archival sources found in the collections of the Organisation of African Unity. The author also refers to publications by Russian and foreign scholars specialising in this field, simultaneously offering alterations to the narratives they previously introduced concerning the interpretation of the Chadian conflict events based on the source analysis conducted in this article.

Introduction

Armed political conflict is no stranger to contemporary Europe. Radicalized nationalist ideologies, state-sanctioned ethnic and religious violence, revolutionary separatist organizations, state-supported armies and police forces turning against civilian populations, insurgents and counterinsurgents, a long list of actors embodying the dance of death in recent times. This Special Issue of the International Journal of Iberian Studies (IJIS), ‘Unspeakable Truths’, will focus on the aftermath and the road to recovery after Basque ETA armed conflict in Spain–France (1959–2011) through the lens of affect, restorative justice, memory, peace-making efforts, and the arts (literature and film) thanks to contributions by academics, ETA and GAL victims, filmmakers, restorative justice practitioners and mediators of the Nanclares process, and peace activists.

Policy Studies Yearbook Annual Review 2022–23: Note from the editor and call for papers

<i>Policy Studies Yearbook Annual Review</i> 2022–23: Note from the editor and call for papers

THE ROAD TO PEACE: STRATEGIES, AGREEMENTS, FORMATS, SCENARIOS AND ZELENSKY’S 10-POINT PEACE FORMULA

The study is devoted to the analysis of strategies, agreements, formats, scenarios and formulas of peace, which were proposed by both national statesmen and the international community, security organizations, and analytical centers for the survival of the Ukrainian state. The peacemaking efforts of V. Zelenskyi in the first two years of his presidency are demonstrated. The transformation of approaches to the resolution of the conflict from 2014 to 2022 was traced. The fact was established that Ukraine had to recognize the Russian-Ukrainian war as a reality on February 24, 2022. V. Zelenskyi’s ten-point peace formula, which aims to ensure the path to a just peace, is analyzed. The courage of the president to publicly state at the G20 summit that there is a set of solutions that need to be implemented and that needs to be done publicly, not behind the scenes, is noted. This aggressive Russian war should have ended justly, on the basis of the UN Charter, and Ukraine should not be offered compromises with conscience, sovereignty, territory and independence. It is emphasized that the Russian-Ukrainian war is the largest in Europe since the Second World War, goes beyond the limits of a bilateral conflict and has a fundamental impact on the system of international relations in the security, economic, trade components and on regional and global processes as a whole.

The Russia-ukraine conflict and the state of affairs for the Ukrainian orthodox church

The article analyses the changes in the state of affairs for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) that occurred after the beginning of the Special Military Operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine (February 2022). The leadership of the UOC has mainly agreed with the policy of Kiev, supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, as well as providing aid to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was evident in the statements of the UOC’s head, metropolitan Onufriy, and the declarations of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. However, despite the position of the UOC (and its peacemaking efforts), the state of affairs for this Church in Ukraine has generally deteriorated, including due to the rising pressure from the authorities (mainly in the western regions), the increase in the number of negative news in the media, and more frequent cases of seizure of churches, which were at times forcibly transferred to another jurisdiction (OCU). At the national level, the threats towards UOC were also present, with the registration of a bill in the Parliament, envisioning a complete ban of the Church (the consideration of this bill has been postponed). At the same time the decision to proclaim the autocephaly of the UOC, adopted at the council in Feofaniya in May 2022, did not lead to a fundamental improvement in the state of affairs for the Church.

Transformations and Navigations of Ethnoreligious and Cultural Identity and Belonging among Kabyle Immigrant Converts to Christianity in France

This article concerns diasporic Kabyle converts to Christianity in France, exploring how these immigrant converts, a Berber/Amazigh people, former Muslims originally from Algeria, North Africa, critically reflect on, revise, and debate their understandings of their conversion to Christianity and express a complex set of transformations and navigations of identity and belonging. Addressed here is a form of conversion from one world religion to another in contexts of migration and sociopolitical change. The analysis traces the changing imagery used by converts in sermons, interviews, sociality, and informal and guided conversations in response to shifting circumstances in both Algeria and France. These transformations show how Kabyle converts “juggle” multiple aspects of their lives, relations, and cultural backgrounds and, more broadly, suggest how these experiences might contribute contextual nuances to anthropological explorations of conversion, symbolism, and interstitionality. In effect, I argue, converts deal with continuities with their Islamic past by reframing them as cultural. Specific examples include converts’ images, attitudes, and practices pertaining to growth, fertility, sowing and reaping, eating, and fasting—in particular, their debates over fasting during Ramadan. These images, I show, act as signifying processes, a medium through which converts critically reflect on their position in France as interstitional in some contexts and as culturally Kabyle in other contexts. The evidence reveals conflicts, debates, and dilemmas, but also reconciliatory peacemaking efforts in converts’ uneasy situating between Berber/Amazigh opposition to Arabization policies back home in Algeria and diasporic opposition to Islamophobia and racism toward immigrants in France. More broadly, the article contributes to discussions of rupture, discontinuity, and continuity in the context of conversion in the anthropology of religion.

Pushing the doors open: Nonviolent action and inclusion in peace negotiations

Whereas previous research shows that peace agreements which include a broad segment of society are more likely to lead to sustainable peace, little effort has gone into explaining inclusion itself. We address this gap in the literature by providing the first large-N study to examine the causes of inclusive peace negotiations across civil wars. We argue that civil society actors can gain leverage through mobilization of civilian protest, or build trust through dialogue efforts, thereby enhancing the chances of inclusion of non-warring actors at the negotiation table. The argument is examined by analysing unique and new monthly data on peacemaking efforts in all intrastate armed conflicts in Africa and the Americas, 1989–2018, including measures beyond mere nominal participation, such as whether civil society actors or political parties had substantive roles as either mediators or full participants at the peace talks. Our findings show that protests by civil society actors increase the likelihood that non-warring actors will have a seat at the negotiation table, whereas we find no such effect concerning dialogue efforts. The article contributes by providing new insights into how nonviolent action can shape peace processes by opening the doors to negotiations and is thus part of an emerging research agenda that seeks to bring together the fields of civil resistance and inclusive peace processes.

Interlocking peace processes: Between competing and complementing peacemaking efforts in interlocking conflicts

What is the dialectical influence between interlocking peace processes? The scholarship in the field of conflict analysis has identified the occurrence of “interlocking conflicts”—namely, linked conflicts that affect each other—but less attention has been drawn to the linkages between efforts to resolve them. The article focuses on the phenomenon of “interlocking peace processes,” in which parallel peacemaking efforts take place among interlinked conflicts. This article examines how progress in one peace process can influence an interlocking process, and the conditions under which a breakthrough in one process can trigger progress in a parallel process or undermine its advancement. It offers a theoretical framework for the analysis of interlocking peace processes, outlining three main arguments, which rest on three influence patterns: complementing peace processes, competing peace processes, and a paving-the-way peace process. The discussion considers how the mechanisms of diffusion, identity formation, and legitimization serve as dominant tools in these processes. The article uses the interlocking peace processes in the Arab-Israeli conflict as a case study, examining the relationship between four processes in the Middle East: the Israeli- Egyptian, Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Jordanian, and Israeli-Syrian peace processes.

Apologies for the Public Good: Towards a Taxonomy of Sorrow

Abstract Apologies are frequently called for today, and can make a valuable contribution to the public good. However, many so-called apologies are actually vague regret, blaming, placating, excusing or merely mourning. Given their importance, this article explores their nature and proposes a taxonomy of sorrow that elucidates the meaning of claims to apology. Simply saying ‘I am sorry’, or worse, adding ‘that you’, ‘if I’, ‘but’ or ‘that’ does not make an apology. Such a statement is only an apology when responsibility and regret are both offered, without excuse, such as the confessing ‘I am sorry that I …’. Given apologies can help heal victims, restore offenders, encourage forgiveness, repair relationships, and contribute to justice and peace-making efforts, the development of such a taxonomy to improve apologies is in the public interest.

Populist peacemaking: Trump's peace initiatives in the Middle East and the Balkans

Abstract With the rise of populist leaders around the world, populism's impact on foreign policy and international affairs has come into focus. Adding to this literature, we propose the concept of ‘populist peacemaking’, in which key tenets of populism, in style and substance, are projected onto the sphere of international mediation. We offer an analytical framework for understanding populist peacemaking consisting of three features. Firstly, populist peacemaking is characterized by a rejection of the ‘peacemaking elites’ and their established rules and practices, including international norms, a refutation of context-specific knowledge, and a clean-slate approach that disregards past peacemaking attempts and alienates other international mediators. Secondly, populist peacemaking employs aggrandized rhetoric and symbolism that puts the mediator—rather than the conflict parties—in the spotlight, thus integrating domestic politics into peacemaking. Finally, populist peacemaking frames the process as representing the volonté générale, i.e. serving the interests of the ‘pure people’ in the conflict-affected context. We illustrate this phenomenon empirically with a case-study of United States' peacemaking efforts during the Trump era, tracing initiatives pursued by US envoys in the Israeli–Palestinian and Kosovo–Serbia conflicts. From this analysis, populist peacemaking emerges as a distinct phenomenon, not to be subsumed under the heading of ‘illiberal peacemaking’.

Idealism, Realism, and the Categorial Imperative in Kant's Perpetual Peace

Immanuel Kant's philosophical system is devoted to reconciling the "anti-nomy" between freedom and determination. In Perpetual Peace, this becomes the related antinomy between morality and politics. This article reinterprets Kant's political essays as efforts to reconcile the modern dichotomy in international politics between idealism and realism. Kant's application of his famous moral rule, the categorical imperative, to the problem of war and peace captures the tension between these contradictory approaches to international relations. The reconciliation he achieves allows contemporary practitioners to be guardedly hopeful in their peacemaking efforts. Proponents of the "democratic peace" thesis, which Kant originated, would do well to control their enthusiasm; yet critics should contain their cynicism.

UN Sanctions and Mediation in Sierra Leone

Abstract The UN-imposed sanctions on Sierra Leone began in 1997 after the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led a coup that forced newly elected president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah into exile. Alongside its peacemaking efforts, the UN Security Council explicitly supported the reinstatement of Kabbah, and its sanctions targeted the RUF by limiting travel and banning the trade of arms, petroleum, and diamonds. This article analyzes whether and how UN sanctions pushed the RUF to negotiate, accept, and implement agreements mediated by the Economic Community of West African States and the UN. Its findings are drawn from the qualitative analysis of official documents, memoirs, and interviews with key negotiators. It adds to the inclusion debate in peace mediation literature by discussing whether the coordinated use of sanctions and mediation can resolve the difficulties inherent in including veto players in peace negotiations.

State Weakness, a Fragmented Patronage-Based System, and Protracted Local Conflict in the Central African Republic

Abstract There is an academic consensus that addressing the local cleavages that drive armed conflict through local peacemaking is crucial to building peace. However, several studies also suggest that local peacemaking is often unsustainable without the conclusion of a national-level elite pact. This article moves this debate forward by arguing that even if an elite-level pact is in place, a lack of connections between national-level elites and local conflict parties can prevent peace from trickling down from the national level to the local level. This argument is demonstrated by looking at national-level and local peacemaking efforts in the Central African Republic. Although several national-level peace agreements have been concluded in the Central African Republic, extreme state weakness and a highly fragmented patronage-based system have prevented national-level peacemaking efforts from having a positive impact on local peacemaking efforts in the Central African Republic. This article contributes to the literature on conflict resolution in Africa. Many studies have focused on the local peace process, yet the national-level context in which these local peace processes take place is only rarely considered.

Intersectional justice denied: Racist warring masculinity, negative peace, and violence in post‐peace accords El Salvador

AbstractThe skyrocketing violence in Central America calls upon scholars to examine the needed conditions for peace. This article challenges the assumption that the absence of violence among factions in conflict is the chief goal around which peacemaking efforts should operate. Based on ethnographic research with women relatives of male gang members and civil war veterans in El Salvador, I argue that the 1992 Salvadoran Peace Accords that ended twelve years of civil war developed a male‐centered notion of negative peace that ended the armed conflict while naturalizing racialized state violence as part of security measures and ongoing violence against women as low‐grade part of everyday life. In the post‐accords era, gang members advance their version of negative peace, promising to protect women and the nation while continuing to oppress their women relatives. I suggest that the effective path to attain substantive peace is to proactively engage in intersectional justice to redress multiple and intersecting forms of violence. The consequences of peacemaking efforts without this attention will result in continued massive killing and immigration to the United States.

Non-state conflicts, peacekeeping, and the conclusion of local agreements

ABSTRACT Much of the quantitative conflict resolution literature focuses on peacemaking efforts aimed at resolving international conflict or civil wars that involve state forces, while ignoring non-state conflict between communal groups, rebel groups, or militias. This article aims to contribute to filling this gap in research. I first put forward a typology of non-state conflicts, based two dimensions: (1) whether the conflictissues are local or national; and (2) whether the conflict parties receiveexternal support or not. Next, I provide some descriptive statistics on the conclusion of peace agreements in non-state conflicts, which suggest that in locations of peacekeeping operations, the involvement of peacekeeping staff in negotiations makes these negotiations more likely to end in the conclusion of an agreement. The article considers several possible causal mechanism that drive this effectiveness, including the arranging of logistics, the provision of security, and mitigating biases of relevant stakeholders.

Waging Peace amid Raging War

AbstractThe unfortunate complicity of religion in conflict and war is well documented. Less well documented, however, are the times and ways religion contributes to making peace. This article adds to the latter body of literature by addressing the link between peacemaking and interreligious dialogue. To that end, it identifies key principles in Islam and Christianity that direct peacemaking efforts. It then compares these principles, identifies key lessons, and suggests directions for future exploration of the potential for interreligious dialogue specifically for peacemaking efforts. It argues that the exploration of interreligious dialogue for peacemaking is becoming more critical as the nature of conflict becomes more intrastate and value differences increasingly drive violence.

LUCAN'S CICERO: DISMEMBERING A LEGEND

AbstractThis paper proposes a new synthetic account of the presence of Cicero as both character and source in Lucan's Bellum Ciuile. Lucan's treatment is derived primarily from Virgil's technique for creating intertextually complex characters, but further builds on Sallust's displacement of Cicero in his narrative of the Catilinarian conspiracy and on the declamatory practice of reducing the orator to a few prominent and recognizable traits. Cicero the character, as he briefly appears at the opening of the seventh book, is not simply an ahistorical caricature: he is constructed through a careful series of allusions designed to indict his use of violence in the suppression of Catiline. Other prominent aspects of Cicero in the tradition are displaced and transferred to other characters more important to Lucan's design, Cato and Pompey. Lucan's depiction of Pompey, especially his death and decapitation, draws on the language and affect of the tradition associated with Cicero, using Cicero's own words and the obituary of Cicero in the lost historical epic of Cornelius Severus. Finally, the language of Cicero's peace-making efforts in his correspondence, suppressed in Lucan's depiction of him as a warmonger, forms an important part of the narrator's own emotional evocations of the impending catastrophe of civil war. The combination of models Lucan uses is more broadly reflective of his technique in composing a historical epic.

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.