This article extends the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) by presenting new global data on non-state conflict, or armed conflict between two groups, neither of which is the state. The dataset ...includes conflicts between rebel groups and other organized militias, and thus serves as a complement to existing datasets on armed conflict which have either ignored this kind of violence or aggregated it into civil war. The dataset also includes cases of fighting between supporters of different political parties as well as cases of communal conflict, that is, conflict between two social groups, usually identified along ethnic or religious lines. This thus extends UCDP's conflict data collection to facilitate the study of topics like rebel fractionalization, paramilitary involvement in conflict violence, and communal or ethnic conflict. In the article, we present a background to the data collection and provide descriptive statistics for the period 1989-2008 and then illustrate how the data can be used with the case of Somalia. These data move beyond state-centric conceptions of collective violence to facilitate research into the causes and consequences of group violence which occurs withput state participation.
In troubled societies narratives about the past tend to be partial and explain a conflict from narrow perspectives that justify the national self and condemn, exclude and devalue the 'enemy' and ...their narrative. Through a detailed analysis, Teaching Contested Narratives reveals the works of identity, historical narratives and memory as these are enacted in classroom dialogues, canonical texts and school ceremonies. Presenting ethnographic data from local contexts in Cyprus and Israel, and demonstrating the relevance to educational settings in countries which suffer from conflicts all over the world, the authors explore the challenges of teaching narratives about the past in such societies, discuss how historical trauma and suffering are dealt with in the context of teaching, and highlight the potential of pedagogical interventions for reconciliation. The book shows how the notions of identity, memory and reconciliation can perpetuate or challenge attachments to essentialized ideas about peace and conflict.
In the aftermath of a civil war, former enemies are left living side by side-and often the enemy is a son-in-law, a godfather, an old schoolmate, or the community that lies just across the valley. ...Though the internal conflict in Peru at the end of the twentieth century was incited and organized by insurgent Senderistas, the violence and destruction were carried out not only by Peruvian armed forces but also by civilians. In the wake of war, any given Peruvian community may consist of ex-Senderistas, current sympathizers, widows, orphans, army veterans-a volatile social landscape. These survivors, though fully aware of the potential danger posed by their neighbors, must nonetheless endeavor to live and labor alongside their intimate enemies. Drawing on years of research with communities in the highlands of Ayacucho, Kimberly Theidon explores how Peruvians are rebuilding both individual lives and collective existence following twenty years of armed conflict.Intimate Enemiesrecounts the stories and dialogues of Peruvian peasants and Theidon's own experiences to encompass the broad and varied range of conciliatory practices: customary law before and after the war, the practice ofarrepentimiento(publicly confessing one's actions and requesting pardon from one's peers), a differentiation between forgiveness and reconciliation, and the importance of storytelling to make sense of the past and recreate moral order. The micropolitics of reconciliation in these communities present an example of postwar coexistence that deeply complicates the way we understand transitional justice, moral sensibilities, and social life in the aftermath of war. Any effort to understand postconflict reconstruction must be attuned to devastation as well as to human tenacity for life.
Mediation, as a means to end armed conflicts, has gained prominence particularly in the past 25 years. This article reviews peace mediation research to date, with a particular focus on quantitative ...studies as well as on significant theoretical and conceptual works. The growing literature on international mediation has made considerable progress towards understanding the conditions under which mediation processes help bring armed conflicts to peaceful ends. Still, the field of international mediation faces a number of problems. In this article, we aim to identify findings on mediation frequency, strategies, bias, and coordination as well as on trends in defining success. Although previous research has generated important insights, there are still unresolved issues and discrepancies which future mediation research needs to explore. Many of the challenges that the field faces could be managed by giving greater attention to accumulative knowledge production, more disaggregated analysis, and a closer dialogue between policy and research.
Democracy and armed conflict Hegre, Håvard
Journal of peace research,
03/2014, Letnik:
51, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The article reviews the literature on the relationship between democracy and armed conflict, internal as well as interstate. The review points to several similarities between how democratic ...institutions affect both conflict types. It summarizes the main empirical findings and discusses the most prominent explanations as well as the most important objections raised to the finding, empirically and theoretically. To a large degree, the empirical finding that pairs of democratic states have a lower risk of interstate conflict than other pairs holds up, as does the conclusion that consolidated democracies have less conflict than semi-democracies. The most critical challenge to both conclusions is the position that both democracy and peace are due to pre-existing socio-economic conditions. I conclude that this objection has considerable leverage, but it also seems clear that economic development is unlikely to bring about lasting peace alone, without the formalization embedded in democratic institutions.
This book examines the continuing devastation in the Darfur region of Sudan, from the perspective of a multiplicity of conflicts of distinct types.
The crisis reached its peak in 2003-2004, when ...certain Arab militias joined forces with the Sudan armed forces in a campaign against insurgent resistance movements. Engulfed in the tumult, Darfurians experienced systematic slaughter, sexual violence, and internal displacement on a massive scale. Although the violence has waned in recent years, the fighting continues to this day. The authors cast this crisis as a complex web of four distinct, yet interlacing, conflict types:
long-standing disputes between farmers and herders and between different herder communities
political struggles between the local elite leaders of the resistance movements, and those between traditional leaders (elders) and younger aspiring leaders
long-standing grievances of marginalized groups against those at the national centre of power
cross-border conflicts, primarily the proxy war waged between Chad and Sudan
The crisis in South Sudan is also examined through the lens of conflict complementarity. This book will be of interest to students of African politics, genocide, political violence, ethnic conflict, war and conflict studies, peacebuilding and IR.
Although conflict issues – the stated goals of actors engaged in conflict – hold a privileged position in many theoretical explanations of the occurrence, dynamics, and resolution of civil war, ...global issue data are scarce beyond datasets that focus on specific thematic areas. This article aims to bring issues into the forefront of civil war scholarship by presenting the UCDP Conflict Issues Dataset (CID). This global yearly dataset contains 14,832 conflict issues – divided, at the most disaggregated level, into 120 sub-categories – raised by armed non-state groups involved in intrastate armed conflict in 1989-2017. By bringing issues back in, the UCDP CID provides opportunities to reevaluate several central questions about the onset, duration, intensity, and resolution of civil war.
Ethnic violence is a widespread concern, but we know very little about
the micro-mechanics of coexistence in the neighborhoods around the world where
inter-group peace is maintained amidst civic ...strife. In this ethnographic study of a
multi-ethnic, middle-class high-rise apartment building in Karachi, Pakistan, Laura
A. Ring argues that peace is the product of a relentless daily labor, much of it
carried out in the zenana, or women's space. Everyday rhythms of life in the
building are shaped by gender, ethnic and rural/urban tensions, national culture,
and competing interpretations of Islam. Women's exchanges between households --
visiting, borrowing, helping -- and management of male anger are forms of creative
labor that regulate and make sense of ethnic differences. Linking psychological
senses of tension with anthropological views of the social significance
of exchange, Ring argues that social-cultural tension is not so much resolved as
borne and sustained by women's practices. Framed by a vivid and highly personal
narrative of the author's interactions with her neighbors, her Pakistani in-laws,
and other residents of the city, Zenana provides a rare glimpse into contemporary
urban life in a Muslim society.
Organized violence, 1989–2019 Pettersson, Therése; Öberg, Magnus
Journal of peace research,
07/2020, Letnik:
57, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This article reports on trends in organized violence, building on new data by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The defeat of Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq has pushed the number of ...fatalities, almost 75,600, to its lowest level since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. However, this de-escalation in Syria is countered by increased violence in Africa, as IS and other transnational jihadist groups have relocated their efforts there. Furthermore, violence has continued to increase in Afghanistan; UCDP recorded more than 31,200 fatalities in Afghanistan in 2019, which accounts for 40% of all fatalities from organized violence across the globe. The general decline in fatalities from organized violence does not correspond with the trend in the number of active conflicts, which remained on a historically high level. UCDP recorded 54 state-based conflicts in 2019, including seven wars. Twenty-eight state-based conflicts involved IS (Islamic State), al-Qaida or their affiliates. In the past decade, conflicts involving these transnational jihadist groups have driven many of the trends in organized violence.
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